Dark Angel
by NSfreak
Summary: FemNaruto. If she had been stronger then none of this would have happened. If she had been stronger then she wouldn't have found herself in a different and unfamiliar world where people bend the elements. Now here she was, helping a bad-tempered prince regain his honour, fighting his crazy sister while at the same time, trying to find out where she really belong.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything.

**A/N: **This story has taken form from inspiration from DeanSamWinchester's story 'Naruto: Hunter x Hunter Chronicles,' but it has many difference from the story. To name a few; her name is Naruko, she's fourteen along with the other Konoha 11, and lastly Naruko won't be thinking a lot about Sasuke in the next couple of chapters.

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Naruko knew without a doubt that she was in serious trouble.

She wished that it was the serious trouble that she was so used to getting into. Sadly it wasn't the serious trouble of her getting scolded from her pranks. It was definitely not the morbid situation like the mission in Nami no Kuni or anywhere similar in the trouble with Orochimaru. No her trouble wasn't as nice as that. Oh no, she was in trouble because she wasn't in her apartment.

Now how does she know that?

Well the last time she checked, she didn't live in a tent but lived in a crappy apartment that certainly didn't have furred carpet on the ground. She also certainly had a wonderfully, reasonably comfy, cheap bed and didn't have a thick blanket but a thin one because of the fact that Konoha could get seriously hot weather.

This place was seriously cold, freezing even and Naruko could feel her whole body shaking from just icy coldness of the tent. She pulled the blanket a little bit higher, covering her shoulders as well as her torso. This place had to be one of the coldness places that she had ever been in.

Which reminded her, how the hell did the fight with the Sasuke bastard have her into this situation?

Now why had she immediately thought Sasuke caused this? Well because she had been trying to get him back home with the others, trying to stop him from going to that perverted snake Orochimaru. The bastard didn't want to go quietly and well she was fed-up with reasoning with him, so they fought. Fought to the point where Sasuke nearly killed her.

She didn't know how it happened but she guessed that maybe along the way of their jutsu clashing, the energy levels might have shot so high that it had sent her to another place entirely? It didn't make sense but that was the only reason she could think of. It had to be because of the fight with Sasuke or why else would she be in this freezing cold place?

If that was the case then she officially hated the bastard even more and couldn't possibly think of giving him a second chance. Now she would have been insane in thinking of giving the older boy a chance when he nearly killed her. She would be considered an idiot if she ever thought of forgiving him when he declared that he was going to kill her. That had made her blood boiled; it had pierced her heart as well as breaking her heart into a million pieces since she thought that he would be better than that. She thought he would be different. But he had to go and prove her wrong about that.

She really thought that they had a bond that couldn't be broken. She had truly believed that nothing could really go between them, not his revenge or power and that he would tell her anything that bothered him. After all, they were the best of friends.

Turned out that she was wrong. Her friendship with him seemed pretty one-sided since he did, afterall, tried to kill her with the chidori and had pretty much insulted her by telling her that she didn't know the love of a family.

She ran her hand through her hair, looking around the tent with curiosity and a small frown on her face. There was nothing familiar with her that could tell her where she might be. The tent was so clean, so neat, and so alien-like! She had never seen a place as tidied as this! It seemed like everything in the tent was so organized, from the pots to the clothes that laid on her right.

Yes this was definitely not her home and there was nothing here that looked remotely familiar with her.

Which made her wonder, where the hell was she?

Naruko took a deep breath and kicked the blanket off her before she pressed her palms against the floor, forcing herself to stand up. She ignored the throbbing pain in her shoulders as she stood up. She stumbled a little bit but quickly gained her posture, standing up as straight as she possibly could. She needed to find the person that found her, thanked them before going back to Konoha. She had a duty to do. She had to inform Tsunade and the others that she couldn't bring Sasuke back and tell them his last words to her.

Through by now, Shikamaru and the others must have realized that Sasuke wasn't going to come back. Knowing Shikamaru, he must have realized this when she hadn't come back and therefore came to the conclusion that the older boy wasn't going back home. The boy was scary smart like that.

If only she had his brains. If he were here, he would have quickly realized where the hell he was.

"You're finally awake, girl," an elderly voice said and Naruko turned her body around to face the voice. Her shoulders dropped and she retreated her hand from her kunai pouch when she saw that it was an elderly woman looking at her with a serious look. "You caused quite a stir in our tribe, appearing the way you did."

"Excuse my language, but who the hell are ya?" She quietly groaned when she felt another stabbing pain in her shoulder. "And where am I?"

The elderly woman pursed her lips at her, grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her down till she was sitting on the blanket. She tossed her something and Naruko immediately caught it with ease, crocking her head at the elderly woman.

"It's for your shoulder."

Naruko blinked her eyes and said in confusion. "_Thank_ you?"

The elderly woman nodded her head and watched her closely as she applied the ointment to her shoulder. "You can call me Gran-Gran, child and you appeared in the middle of the center with blood pouring from your shoulder and a couple of broken bones. Luckily we were able to stop your bleeding by putting bandages on it…you were very close to dying."

"I kinda got the idea when I woke up, you know with unfamiliar place with bandages in my shoulder."

The elderly woman arched her eyebrows and Naruko smiled hesitantly, standing up from the floor and grabbing her orange jacket that had been folded against the spot where her blanket once laid. She pushed her arms around the sleeves, zipping it up before looking at the old woman.

"So Gran-Gran, mind telling me where am I?"

"You're in the Southern Water Tribe."

"And where's that?"

"In the South Pole," The elderly woman stated dryly.

Naruko blinked her eyes at this and blinked again and again, waiting for the woman to tell her that it was a joke. It had to be. Because there was no place in the Elemental Nations called the South Pole. The last time she checked she hadn't heard of a place called the South Pole.

"Right…and where's that?"

The elderly woman curled her lips, crossed her arms and stared hard into her eyes and Naruko shifted under her seat, feeling suddenly uncomfortable with the elderly woman. Her insides felt jittery and she suddenly had the urge to run away from the woman but she kept herself there. She didn't want to show the woman that she frightened her.

"You're not joking, are you?" The elderly woman stared at her critically. "You don't know where you are, do you?"

"Would I be asking if I did."

Gran-Gran didn't even chuckle at her words, scowling at her and the blonde smiled apologetically at her. "Do you know about the Fire Nation then? Surely you must know about them?"

"Is that Hi no Kuni?"

"What does that mean?" The elderly woman asked sharply. "Does it have anything to do with the Fire Nation?"

Naruko's jaw opened at her words and she almost dropped to the floor. The world must be going crazy. It just had to be. How could this old woman not know about Hi no Kuni? Almost every person in the world knew about the place. It was one of the most powerful nations in the world and this elderly person doesn't know about it?

This had to be one of the craziest things that ever happened to her.

"It means the Land of Fire and what's the Fire Nation?" Naruko tilted her head. "Because the last time I checked, my village wasn't located in the Fire Nation or in the Southern Water Tribe or South Pole but in Hi no Kuni."

"There's no such place as Hi no Kuni, child!"

"There is! I was born there after all!" Naruko snapped, pacing back and forth in the tent. "It's my home! Well technically Konohagakure is but it's located there, so my home is Hi no Kuni! You know it's near Kawa no Kuni! Which is near Kaze no Kuni! Surely you know that place!"

"Never heard of them in my life," The woman narrowed her eyes. "Which either means that you're either a spy for the Fire Nation, through I haven't seen a member of the Fire Nation with your hair or eye colour before, or you must have hit your head pretty hard from your fall! The last time I checked, there was no nation called that!"

Naruko fell down on the floor at this news and put her head down at her hands. This couldn't be happening! She didn't want this to be true! Her home must be here! Konoha should be here! She couldn't be in a place where there was no such thing as her home! Because if that was true then that meant she had no place to go.

It meant that any dreams she had, any hopes that she had were now all gone. Hokage was no longer in her grasp because if there was no Konoha then there was no Hokage. She couldn't have her dream of becoming the strongest kunoichi in the world if she was the only kunoichi. She couldn't see any of her friends anymore.

That was the worst thing that could ever happen to her.

Naruko bit her lips and tried to ignore the prickle of tears that were threatening to come out. She would never hear Sakura's shrill yells about how much of an idiot she was. Never be able to hear the gentle, soothing voice that was Hinata. She would never have another argument with Kiba about who's stronger. Never be able to bother Shikamaru for help with her pranks or insult Ino about her love for Sasuke. She gulped. She would never be able to hear the sound of Lee talking nonsense about youth with Gai and would never again tried to persuade Choji to give her a chip.

All of that was gone now.

"You're quiet, child."

Naruko curled her lips at the elderly woman and replied angrily, "Of course I'm fucking quiet! I'm never going to be able to go back home! Any dreams I've is gone now! And all because my home is gone! I'm never going to see my friends ever again! Do you think I'm going to be fucking happy to know this?"

"Language, girl."

"Well ya not my grandmother or my relative so I ain't listening to you about my language!" Naruko snapped, crossing her arms. "I'll swear as much as I want! And I certainly have the fucking right after knowing that my home isn't in this place! Hi no Kuni doesn't exist, Kaze no Kuni doesn't exist, none of the countries I know exist! The countries that does exist are countries that sound nothing like my home!"

"Your home could be in the Fire Nation," The old woman snapped, looking at her rather heatedly.

"My home isn't in the Fire Nation! My home is nowhere there! Wherever that place is! I was born in Konohagakure, which is Hi no Kuni! The last time I checked nowhere did it mention Fire Nation!" Naruko snapped. "The only place that I associated with fire as a country name is my one! And I'm certain as hell that my home isn't called the Fire Nation!"

"Say that it isn't, how did you get here then?" The woman questioned.

Naruko gulped at this question and looked down at her shaking hands. Words were jumbled in her throat and the memory of her fight with Sasuke rushed through her mind. She could still feel the stringing from the chidori; remember the heat of his glare and the emptiness in his eyes as he stated that he was going to kill her.

Could she really tell the old lady that?

Well if it was going to make the old lady believe her then yes she would have no choice but to tell her the truth.

"I was in fight with my ex-friend," The old woman arched her eyebrows and the blonde took several calming breaths before continuing. "I was trying to bring him back home before he goes to a perverted snake-like man called Orochimaru. I tried talking to him but he wouldn't listen. So I fought him instead and somewhere along the way, we nearly killed each other and I think when our attacks clashed, it sent me here."

"And how's that possible?"

"Well our jutsu clashed of course! We were using quite powerful jutsu!" Naruko grimaced. "I never thought that I would actually use it against him…I never thought that he would do something like this to me."

"What's a jutsu?"

"Jutsu are the arts that ninjas use in a battle," Naruko explained and she crossed her arm. "For us to use a jutsu, the ninja needs to be able to use their chakra."

"And what's chakra?"

Naruko put her head against her arms and mentally groaned. Words couldn't express just how much confusion she felt on the fact that the woman didn't know about chakra. Even the civilians in Konoha knew about chakra and they weren't ninjas. Even the people that lived in places without ninjas knew what chakra was.

She had never really thought that she would one day meet someone that didn't know about chakra.

"I'm not good in explaining but I guess if I had to put it in the simplest way then it's the molding of the physical energy and the spiritual energy," Naruko explained, crossing her arms. "Most civilians can't do it an that's the main difference between a shinobi and civilian. Shinobi can mold chakra while civilians can't do that."

"I see."

There was doubt in the old woman's eyes and her tone suggested that she didn't believe her about how she wasn't from here. Naruko scowled at this, crossed her arms as she tried to figure out a way to prove the woman that she was telling the truth. She had to give concrete, believable proof that would make the woman realized that she was telling the truth. And the only way

"If I show a jutsu, will you believe me?"

The woman looked at her suspiciously and eyed her before reluctantly nodding her head at her. Naru took a deep breath, put her hands into the familiar hand-seal position. She needed to regain her temper and cool, through that wasn't really necessary for jutsu but it was a good idea. She didn't want to make the old lady even angrier with her.

"**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"** Naruko yelled and with a poof, twenty identical copies of her stood in front of the elderly woman. The elderly woman yelped and looked at the clones suspiciously, grabbing a broom that lay against the wall and poked her clone. If this weren't such a serious situation, Naruko would have laughed her head off at what the woman was doing but unfortunately, this was a rather serious situation.

"They're solid!" The woman exclaimed and she started walking around the clones, who all had a scowl on their face as the woman continued poking them on the back. "And they look exactly like you! Same face, same posture, same clothes! How's that even possible?"

"Chakra of course," One of her clones replied. "Boss only needs to mold her chakra to make us! She's the only person her age that could so such a technique! She's awesome that way!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty awesome."

"Boss also has a big head if ya can't tell!" The other clone piped and the old woman simply blinked her eyes at this, struggling to open her mouth to say something but closed it in the end. Naruko watched as the elderly woman stumbled into a seat and looked at her in wonder and licked her cracked lips, looking as if she had several questions to ask. Naruko didn't blame the old woman she did.

She certainly would have questions if she had seen someone doing that.

"You're really not from this world, are you?"

"What gave it away? My shadow clones or the fact that I've been insisting that I don't know any of the countries that you were talking about?" Naruko asked sarcastically, crossing her arms while her clones looked around the tent with interest.

"Your hair colour."

"My hair colour?"

Gran-Gran nodded her head, rubbing her chin and stated, "I've never seen a person with yellow hair before…I've never even thought that such a thing exist. Your eye colour is common with the people of our tribe, through your eyes are brighter than ours. Brighter than even my granddaughter's eyes."

"If it makes you feel better in my village, I was pretty unusual since no one in my village had my shade of hair colour," Naruko gulped. "Now I guess it means that I'm the only person in the entire world with this hair colour. Isn't that sad? No longer will I be able to see people with my hair colour!" she laughed bitterly. "Who cares about that? I won't ever be able to return home ever again! I don't have a home anymore!"

Naruko didn't know why but maybe it was the fact when she said it, it finally dawned to her that she really no longer had a home. No longer had any friends. So maybe that was why she cried her heart out. She could feel the streams of tears that were pouring out of her eyes and the urge to yell out at Kami was strong but she held it in. She couldn't show anymore weakness to this old lady.

"I'm sorry for your loss," The old woman whispered and for the first time in her whole life, Naruko felt herself being embraced into a warm hug. Her body became tense in the hug for a brief moment, unsure on how to react but before she even realized it, she cried even harder for her loss. The old woman patted her in the back, whispering comforting words about how she could stay here until she knew what to do with herself.

She didn't let go of the elderly woman until she heard the sound of someone shrieking. Naruko quickly let go of Gran-Gran and turned her body around, eyes widening when she saw a girl around her age pointing at her shadow clones with a shaky finger before pointing her finger at her. Beside the girl was a boy, who was gawking at the sight in front of him.

"What the hell is that?" The girl asked, looking at her clones. "T-They look exactly like her! Was there more of them that we didn't even realize!"

"Well obviously!" The boy snapped. "Those things looked exactly like her!"

"Oi! We're not a that or things!" Her clones snapped. "We're obviously girls, of course! And of course we look like her! We're her clones!"

"C-Clones?" The girl squeaked and she turned to look at the elderly woman. "W-What's happening Gran-Gran?"

Naruko groaned at this and quickly repeated her explanation to the girl, who seemed to be able to believe the explanation more easily then the old woman. She had quickly learnt from the young girl that her name was Katara and that the boy beside her was her brother, Sokka. It was nice to know that Katara believed her. Then again the dark-haired girl had walked in to the tent, saw her clones and so had no choice but to believe her. Maybe she should be more careful about using her shadow clones while she's here?

Nah.

"So you're not from this world?" The boy asked dubiously, looking at her clones with suspicion and weariness. "And you're definitely not from the Fire Nation!"

"Nope," Naruko said, rubbing her head uncomfortably. "Last time I check, my world didn't have a place called the South Pole! And I don't know a place call the Fire Nation!"

"Does your world have benders then?" Katara asked excitably.

The blonde frowned, scratched her head and raised her eyebrows at this, trying to figure out what the hell was bending but nothing came to mind. When she thought of bending, she remembered the one incident where she dared Kiba to bend a spoon with his bare hands. She doubted that what was the girl meant.

"Um, what's bending?"

The girl frowned and said, "Bending is the ability to manipulate an element."

Naruko blinked and blinked her eyes at this piece of information, curling her lips at this piece of information before shaking her head and muttered, "That's a useful ability to have. Probably don't need to waste a lot of chakra doing it."

"Chakra?"

"Long explanation," Naruko said cheerfully. "I'll tell ya about it later!"

The dark-haired girl nodded her head at her and smiled at her before talking to her grandmother about how one of the animals was now having contraction. The elderly woman nodded her head, gave her a small smile before quickly following her grandchildren out of the tent. As soon as she was sure that they were gone, Naruko slumped against the tent and looked down at her hands.

This was all of her fault. If she had been stronger, smarter then maybe she would be back home with the others. She clenched her hands into a fist. There was no way back home. How could there be? She could summon the toads but she didn't know if the toads were able to send her back home, nor if she was able to do it. The last time she summoned, she needed help and summoning Gamabunta wouldn't be easy for her, not now at least.

If only she had good chakra control then maybe a way home wouldn't seem so bleak.

Well in the meantime, she would have to use her shadow clones as a way of improving her chakra control and hopefully she would be able to summon Gamabunta easily, without trouble and doubt.

She really didn't want to spend anymore time in this world than she had too.

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**I would like to hear your thoughts about this chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything.

**A/N:** I want to thank everyone who reviewed and added this to their favorites and follows. I should warn you that this might be the longest chapter that I have ever written but the next chapter won't be as long as this chapter.

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Nearly six months had passed since she appeared in the Southern Water Tribe, and a day didn't passed where Naruko compared her old life with the life she had now. Life in Konoha had been so much simpler then the life here. She didn't need to learn how to sow, didn't need to help Sokka hunt for food and she certainly didn't have to deal with the cold weather.

But despite all of that, Naruko enjoyed her life in the Southern Water Tribe. She had learned an easier way to capture fish that didn't meant her or her clones jumping into the freezing water. Who knew that she just needed to make a spear to capture a fish? If she had known that then she wouldn't have to do what she did in the Forest of Death. It would have saved her from having to take off her shirt and getting the fish.

Naruko shook her head at this thought and looked at Sokka and Katara. Sokka stood in the canoe, body hunched and his spear raised high as he searched for their meal. Katara looked at the older boy in boredom and the blond-haired girl didn't blame her. They have been here since early in the morning and they still haven't gotten any fish.

"It's not getting away from me this time," Sokka said, licking his lips. "Watch and learn, Katara and Naruko. This is how you catch a fish."

"I'm not taking lessons from a guy that hadn't been able to catch any fish for the past four hours," Naruko stated and the older boy twisted his head to glare at her. The blonde crossed her arms at him. "Look we've been here for hours, Sokka and you still haven't caught any damn fish!"

"Well why don't you try it then!" Sokka snapped.

"And have you make comments about how I must have some luck?" Sokka opened his mouth to protest but quickly closed his mouth at the sight of Naruko's glare. "I'd like to have a day where you don't make such comments! And what better way then have you do all the work! At least then you can blame yourself for not catching the fish and not me!"

"If that's the case then why the hell did you volunteer to come with us?" Sokka snapped.

Naruko shrugged her shoulder and responded, "I volunteered because I was bored as hell with all of the chores I've been doing and my training. It also didn't help that I wasn't particularly interested in cleaning your _clothes_."

"And what's wrong with my clothes?" Sokka demanded and the blond-haired girl wrinkled her nose, scowling at him before shaking her head and the caused the boy to start ranting at her about how she should understand that a female shouldn't complain about cleaning the clothes. Naruko simply rolled her eyes, leaned against the canoe and basically ignored Sokka as he continued on with the rant.

She yawned and flickered her eyes towards Katara, who had already taken off her glove and was doing some motion with her exposed hand. What was the girl planning to do now? Naruko curled her lips and watched in fascination as a globe of water containing a fish bursts out of the water. No matter how many times she watched Katara do this, it never seemed to stop her fascination.

"Sokka! Naruko! Look what I'm doing!" Katara cried.

Naruko whistled and said, "I'm watching Katara and can I say that's impressive! I've to say that had to be one of the best things that you've done yet!"

Katara beamed in pride at her words and looked at Sokka in expectation but the older boy didn't pay attention, still holding his spear up high and licked his lips. Naruko raised her eyebrows at this. A couple of minutes ago, the boy had been ranting to her about how she shouldn't complain about cleaning his clothes and now here he was, trying to capture a fish. That boy seemed to be able to change his attention fast.

"Katara, you're gonna scare it away," Sokka hissed and he licked his lips. "I can already smell it cookin'"

"Is food all you think about?" Naruko asked.

"It's Sokka," Katara stated, struggling to control the globe of water. "Is there a time when he isn't thinking of food?"

Naruko chuckled and nodded in agreement at Katara's words. She watched closely and in amusement as the blob of water floated closer to Sokka, who raised his spear to strike the fish that was swimming in front of him. Sokka cocked his arm back, causing the blob of water to burst, which in return caused Naruko to laugh out loud at the misfortune of Sokka. This seemed the perfect pay back for making them wait hours end for him to capture a fish.

The older boy wasn't amused at this. He glared at the laughing blond and turned his attention to his sister. Shaking his head, he looked at Katara in annoyance and said, "Why is it every time you play with magic water I get soaked? Naruko doesn't get soaked! Gran Gran doesn't get soaked! No one gets soaked but me! It's always me!"

"Maybe because you're just unlucky that it just happens to you?" Naruko asked, stopping Katara from doing her usual rant about how it was waterbending and not magic. She had already memorized that rant after hearing her ranting to Sokka about how he shouldn't insult it. You know the first couple of times were funny for her but after the thirtieth time, it just got plain old boring for her to hear.

"But it isn't fair."

"Who says life is fair?" Naruko retorted. "And it isn't like Katara meant to soak you with water. If you had bother paying attention to her then you wouldn't have gotten soak by the water."

"No I wouldn't have gotten soak if Katara should keep her weirdness to herself!"

Naruko flickered her eyes at Katara and mentally groaned when she saw the ugly scowl on her friend's face. Why did Sokka have to say that? Now he was going to get it from her. He was going to deal with Katara's wrath and there was no way in hell that she would calm the girl down. She had every right to be furious with Sokka. If someone called her weird then Naruko would definitely hit them in the head.

"You're calling me weird?" Katara crossed her arms and glared at her brother. "I'm not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection in the water."

Sokka scowled and put his arms down, causing Naruko to shake her head and Katara to roll her eyes at her brother. They all groaned when the boat bumped into something, their heads falling down on the process. The three of them looked up to see that they have entered an ice-packed area. Without a second thought, the three of them started to work frantically to move the canoe between the icebergs, splashing their hands against the water in hopes that it would.

"Go left! Sokka! Go left!" Katara yelled as the boy struggled to steer the canoe properly.

"Um guys, I don't think that it's working!" Naruko yelled out as Sokka continued to row the canoe and Katara tried to control the water.

"Why haven't I _noticed_ that? Sokka yelled as he tried to gain control of the canoe. Naruko glared at the boy and opened her mouth to yell at the boy but closed her mouth when she saw that they were now heading towards three icebergs. There was no way in hell that they would be able to avoid it. So without a second thought, Naruko grabbed Sokka by the sleeve of his overcoat and Katara by the collar of overcoat, hauling them off the canoe before jumping off the canoe, just in time of the collision.

"Thank you, Naruko!" Katara said as she struggled to stand up properly and Naruko shrugged her shoulder, waving her hand dismissively at the girl before rushing towards Sokka. She offered her hand and the boy immediately latched onto her hand, struggling to stand up on the ice.

"Thanks Naruko."

"No problem," Naruko stated. She scanned the area, searching for a way back home but all she saw was ice and water. She could walk on the water but Sokka and Katara can't do that, so she can't just leave them to do it. She grimaced. There must be a way back to the village, which would be able to allow her and the others back. She could always use a shadow clone and make them henge into a canoe, but she didn't know if it would be strong enough to carry all that weight.

Her shadow clone might be able to handle Katara but maybe not Sokka.

"So it's my fault?" Katara yelled, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"I knew I should have left you at home," Sokka snapped. "Leave it to a girl to screw things up."

Naruko scowled at his words and for a brief moment, she contemplated of hitting the boy on the head but decided against it. Hitting him in the head won't make him learn anything through it might teach him that he should keep his thoughts to himself. She nodded her head at this thought. Maybe hitting him in the head would be a good idea.

"You're the most sexist, immature, nut brained," Katara yelled and Naruko's eyes widened when she noticed that the iceberg was starting to heave and that the giant iceberg behind Katara was beginning to crack from the waves that was hitting it. The blonde had a bad feeling that things were going to go from bad to worse as Katara continue to rant.

"Katara, I think you need to calm down!" Naruko hissed, as she watched the iceberg continue to crack.

"Calm down! Calm down!" Katara yelled, glaring at her. "How can you take his side? He just basically insulted us because he thinks that we screwed things up!"

"Because Sokka is an idiot who doesn't think what he said and because I can kick his ass," Naruko stated and Sokka opened his mouth to protest at her words. The blonde shot him an icy glare before returning her attention to the furious girl. "And don't let his words get to ya! He's just jealous that he doesn't have your waterbending!"

"I'm not jealous!"

"Right and I'm not from another world."

"You don't get it Naruko!" Katara yelled, stopping the two of them from having another argument about his jealously. "Ever since Mom died I've been doing all the work around the village while Sokka had been off playing soldier."

"So?" Naruko asked, shrugging her shoulder. "It doesn't mean that you yell at him! Make him take some of the responsibility if that makes you angry! It'll certainly teach him just how hard it is to do your job!"

"Um…Katara, Naruko?" Sokka said, trying to gain the two girl's attention about the cracking iceberg.

"And you think that will teach him a lesson!" Katara snapped.

"Wouldn't it?"

"You think that he'll learn a lesson by smelling his dirty socks!" Naruko paused at this question before nodding her head at this question. Katara's eyebrows twitched at her response and she yelled out, "He won't learn anything from smelling his dirty socks! It doesn't matter to him the fact that his socks AREN'T PLEASANT!"

Naruko sighed and tried to figure out a way to calm the girl down but nothing came to mind. She looked at Sokka helplessly. The older boy shook his head and pointed at the cracking iceberg and Naruko's eyes widened when she saw just how big the cracks were getting. It seemed she really had to find a way to calm the girl down before the iceberg really cracked.

It seemed like Sokka had the same thoughts.

"Katara! Settle down!" Sokka yelled.

Katara glared at the boy and screamed, "NO, THAT'S IT. I'M DONE HELPING YOU. FROM NOW ON, YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN!"

Naruko gawked as the iceberg split open entirely, disintegrating into smaller pieces and Naruko channeled her chakra to her feet as the major parts of the ice fell into the water, pushing the iceberg away. It was in that moment, Naruko decided that she would have to teach Katara to keep her temper in check. Who knew the girl would be able to cause such destruction? She glanced at the two of them and frowned. Sokka and Katara held onto the edge of the iceberg, staring at her enviously. She smiled apologetically at them and shrugged her shoulder.

Naruko stopped channeling her chakra to her feet as soon as she felt that the iceberg was settled and certain that it wouldn't move anymore. Turning her head, she gestured for Sokka and Katara to stop holding the iceberg, telling them that it was safe for them to stand. They looked at her dubiously but did as she suggested.

"Well Katara, I hope that you're proud of yourself," Naruko said as Katara and Sokka walked towards her. Katara furrowed her eyebrows and the blonde sighed, gesturing towards the cracked icebergs. There was now more icebergs then before, and that meant going back to the village was going to be even more difficult for them.

Why must Katara do troublesome things?

"She definitely gone from weird to freakish," Sokka commented as Katara took in the damage that she had made. Naruko shot a frown at the boy. He shrugged his shoulders; not bothering to take back his comment and the blonde wished that the boy would at least stop saying such comments to Katara. He might be joking but sometimes his words could be really rude and hurtful in her opinion.

"Did I really seriously do this?" Katara asked incredulously.

Naruko arched her eyebrows and said dryly, "Do I look like I would do this? I have a mean punch and everything but I need to be _near_ it to do damage like this. Sokka is too weak to do a damage like that."

"Oi! I'm not weak."

"Sokka, I could beat you five seconds flat and I wasn't the strongest person in my home," Naruko pointed out. "You're not as weak as other people but it doesn't change the fact that you're not strong enough to do a damage like this."

"And you are?"

"What does that mean?" Naruko narrowed her eyes, putted her hands on her hips and stared at the boy, who was turning pale at the sight of her glare. "Are you implying that because I'm a girl that I'm not able to do a damage just as deadly as this? If that's the case then do you want me to demonstrate it to you? I've no problem of showing you what a girl can do."

"N-No need."

Just as soon as he finished saying that, the water below them began to glow an incandescent blue and Katara and Sokka moved backwards from the raft onto another one. Naruko jumped towards the raft neared Katara and Sokka new one. The blonde watched in interest as a lighter coloured iceberg broke the surface, and Naruko inched closer to the new iceberg, hoping to have a better look of it. Was this part of the iceberg that Katara or was it just coincidence? She inched closer to get a better look of the iceberg.

Naruko gawked at the sight of a boy inside of the ice. The boy was in some kind of meditation pose and for some strange reason he had white arrows on his fist as well as his baldhead. She gasped when she saw that his eyes were glowing and that his arrow markings were also glowing white. What the hell was happening? Was this in anyway or form normal? She glanced at Katara and came to the conclusion from her curious expression that it wasn't.

"He's alive," Katara said loudly. "We've to help!"

The blonde frowned and looked at the iceberg for a brief moment before shrugging her shoulder. There was a boy stuck inside of there and it would seem rather wrong for them not to get him out of there. And the last thing she wanted was a guilty conscious in her mind. So with that thought, Naruko skipped across a couple of icebergs, Katara and Sokka a few steps behind her.

"Naruko! Katara! Get back here!" Sokka yelled. "We don't know what that thing is!"

"Apparently a person!" Naruko shot back as she landed on the iceberg in which the boy was trapped. Taking a couple of deep breaths, the blonde gathered chakra to her clenched fist and slammed her fist against the ice. Katara and Sokka looked at her in shock and awe as the ice cracked opened. She smiled at them, shooting Sokka a triumph look before turning her attention on the iceberg.

Naruko's teeth started to shudder as a huge gust of wind was released from the ice and for a brief moment, she wanted to close the iceberg just so she could get rid of the cold. Why must that thing be so cold? She gasped at the sight of a huge shaft of white light shot straight up to the sky. Was that bright white light going up to the heavens? Because it certainly seemed so.

The blonde took a couple of steps back, covering her eyes as she waited for the bright light to dissipated. When she was sure that the light wasn't so bright anymore, Naruko looked up to see some residual blue light that was still swirling around the top of what was left of the iceberg. The blonde frowned when she saw that the boy appeared, noticing how his eyes and arrow markings were still glowing.

It seemed Sokka noticed too because he was raising his spear at the boy and said, "Stop!"

The boy stood up as the glow and residual energy faded and Naruko's heart stopped when the boy passed out, sliding down the side of the ruined iceberg to Sokka and her. Katara lunged forward, catching the boy as he fell and Naruko let out the breath that she hadn't even realize that she had been holding. That boy for some strange reason made her feel tense! She glared at Sokka as he poked the boy in the head with the blunt end of his weapon.

"Stop it!" Katara snapped, pushing the weapon away from the unconscious boy before turning to the boy. She gently turned him over, causing the boy to lie on his back. Naruko took a step forward and decided to kneel beside Katara, tilting her head as the boy began to wake up. He slowly opened his eyes and Naruko looked at him in concern, figuring that the boy might not be so well since he seemed to be have stuck in that iceberg for a while now.

The boy took a deep breath and whispered in a weak voice, "I need to ask you something."

"What?" Katara asked, looking at the boy in concern.

"Please…come closer," The boy whispered.

Naruko raised her eyebrows as Katara leaned closer. The blonde laughed when she saw the twinkle in the boy's eyes, and moved towards Sokka. She just knew from the twinkle in the boy's eyes that he was fine and that whatever he was going to ask wasn't anything harmful. Well she hoped that he didn't because she didn't want to have to stop Sokka from hurting a little kid.

"Will you go penguin sledding with me?" The boy asked-his tone seemed very excited despite the fact that he seemed to be sick a few minutes ago.

The blonde smiled as Katara furrowed her eyebrows and answered, "Uh…sure. I guess."

Naruko tilted her head as she watched the boy propelled himself to his feet through the use of air, rubbing his head as he did so. Naruko stared at the boy in fascination. Was that airbending? It had to be because that seemed to be the only logical explanation on why he hadn't stumbled down or used his hands to stand up.

The blonde took a seat on the icy ground and looked up at the sky, searching for any signs of the white light. That white light had to be a sign of some sorts and it might explain why the boy had been stuck on the ice. After all there must be some reason on why there was a bright light when the boy had been found.

She grimaced when she saw that there was no sign of the light. It seemed like she would have to ask the boy about that. She rubbed her tense neck and searched for the younger boy. She frowned when she saw that the boy was frantically climbing up the ruined iceberg. She didn't blink an eyelid as the boy jumped over the lip of the new crater.

Instead she simply walked around the corner while Katara and Sokka rushed towards the boy. Naruko furrowed her eyebrows as soon as she saw a huge animal in front of her, who was currently licking the boy that was trying to keep him awake. She twisted her head to see her two friends reaction and shook her head at their shocked faces.

"I'm guessing an animal like that isn't normal?" Naruko asked.

"Of course it isn't!" Sokka snapped. "Have you seen an animal that big in the South Pole?"

"Well no but I've seen bigger animals," Naruko stated and Sokka's eyes widened at this piece of information. He opened his mouth to question her before shaking his head, seeming to decide that he didn't want to know. The two of them returned their attention at the boy, who was still hugging the animal. Taking a closer look at the animal, Naruko saw that the animal had six legs and a horn like a steer. She crossed her arms and watched wearily as the animal got up.

"What's that thing?" Sokka asked.

"That's Appa, my flying bison."

Sokka looked at the boy skeptically and pointed to Katara before saying, "Right. And this Katara, my flying sister."

The boy opened his mouth to reply but he seemed to have changed his mind. Naruko's eyes widened when she saw that the flying bison was about to sneeze and she immediately pushed Sokka out of the way as Appa sneezed. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the sight of the snot on the spot where Sokka had just been. That was seriously disgusting! And that snot looked so sticky! She was grateful that she hadn't got caught on it.

"Do you guys live around here?" The boy asked, looking at the three of them with curiosity.

"Don't answer that!" Sokka snapped. "Did you see that crazy bolt of light? He was probably trying to signal the Fire Navy."

Naruko raised her eyebrows and said dryly, "Y'know that the boy had been frozen for some time now right? And that he's younger then you."

"Well they can use kids younger than us to make us think that they aren't harmful. They are evil like that!"

"Right and this boy look evil right?" Naruko pointed at the boy, who gave them an innocent look. "He looks so evil now with that glint in his eye right?" Sokka looked at her sheepishly. "Honestly Sokka, you're being too paranoid with the boy! I doubt that the boy is apart of the Fire Nation!"

Naruko flashed a grin at the boy and said, "My name is Naruko Uzumaki! The paranoid idiot is Sokka and the girl beside you is Katara! What's your name?"

"Oh, I'm A…aaaahhhh…ahhh…aaah aah aah AAAAACHOOO!" Naruko blinked her eyes as the boy sneezed and flew up into the air. Well there's someone in this world that could jump that high huh? She looked up to the sky and stared, waiting for the boy to come down. It wasn't long before he was skating through the ice and stood in front of her.

"I'm Aang," Aang said, sniffing and rubbing his nose as Naruko gave him a huge smile.

Sokka gawked and muttered, "You just sneezed…and flew ten feet in the air."

"It looked higher than that."

"It also felt higher than that."

Katara blinked her eyes at this piece of information and slammed her fist together, looking as if she had just solved a difficult puzzle. Naruko raised her eyebrows at Katara but the girl ignored her, fixing her attention at Aang and said rather loudly. "You're an airbender!"

Aang nodded and said cheerfully, "Sure am."

Sokka rubbed his forehead and groaned. "Giant light beams…flying bison…airbenders…I think I've got Midnight Sun Madness," he started to walk away from them. "I'm going home to where stuff make sense."

"And how do we get home then, genius?" Naruko asked sarcastically. Sokka frowned at her words, which caused the blonde gestured to the area, which was filled with nothing but the sea and the ice. His frown deepened and Naruko sighed, rubbing her forehead as she thought about a way back home. She looked at Aang and the boy smiled at them. She wondered if it was possible if his animal could send them back home. It would definitely be faster than her walking on the water to get help for Katara and Sokka.

"If you guys are stuck then Appa and I can give you a lift," Aang said as he jumped onto Appa's head and Naruko suddenly noticed that there was an enormous saddle on the animal's back and that there was reigns attacked to both of Appa's horns.

"We'd love a ride! Thanks!" Katara said as she got on Appa. Naruko flickered her eyes at the water and then to Appa before shrugging her shoulders and she jumped up and took a seat beside Katara. She rather didn't want to test the limits of her chakra control just yet and the beast rather looked cute, so maybe it wouldn't hurt to take a ride.

Now if only she could say that to Sokka.

"Sokka?"

"I'm not getting on that fluffy snot monster," Sokka stated and Naruko rolled her eyes at the boy. Of course Sokka wouldn't want to ride Appa because he thought that the animal wasn't safe and because he hated trying new things. She rolled her eyes at this thought. And this boy wanted to be the leader of his village. If he was going to be a leader then he needed to try new things, including things like this.

"Are you hoping some other kind of monster will come along and give you a ride home?" Katara asked, before adding. "You know…before you freeze to death?"

"And you do realize that if you don't get a ride home soon then you'll have the company of the cold wind instead of your warm comfy blanket," Naruko added, grinning at him. "And that you'll have no food, no meat, and especially none of your grandmother's cooking! But if you're willing to live with that then we could leave you here."

That seemed to change Sokka's mind because he immediately climbed onto the saddle, looking grumpy as he did so. Naruko rolled her eyes. That boy had to change his mind about certain things and unfortunately for him, this just had to be one of them. She yawned as Aang told them that it wouldn't be long before Appa was going to be soaring through the sky.

Who cared about flying? She just wanted to get back home.

All she wanted was to get back to bed and rest before continuing her training.

* * *

"You're really hungry, Naruko aren't you?" Gran-Gran stated as the blond-haired girl gobbled down all of the food on the table. Naruko looked up from her plate, flushed deep red before muttering an apology to the old woman. She really felt embarrassed for doing that but it seemed like it had been a long time since she last saw food.

"I can't help it!" Naruko gulped down her food. "I've been training and helping Katara with the chores! Of course that burns my energy!"

"Then what about the other days of the week?" Sokka asked with his mouth filled with food. Naruko wrinkled her nose in disgust at him before shooting him a glare and crossed her arms, looking highly annoyed at his words. "You weren't training two days ago and yet you ate even more then me!"

"That's because I was doing your laundry!" Naruko snapped. "And doing your laundry is like going to war! It's a horrible and unpleasant experience!" she paused and added. "Of course you'll know that if you bother cleaning your own damn clothes."

Sokka crossed his arms and opened his mouth to protest at her words but shook his head at her and decided to gobble down the food in front of him. Naruko curled her lips in disgust at the boy's table manners. Honestly, it always seemed to her that Sokka ate his food as if he had never seen food in his life. Which was highly untrue since they had plenty of food in the village, thanks to her shadow clones, whom she put in charge to catch the fish or hunt for other animals.

Speaking of her shadow clones.

"…Boss!" One of her shadow clones yelled as she opened the tent. The clone laughed out loud when Sokka fell down on his chair. He gawked at the clone in shock. Till this day, Sokka still hadn't gotten over the fact that she could make clones. "We caught a lot more fish then last time!"

"That's good," Naruko said. "Did you put the fish where I told you to put it this time? Or have you done and do something more creative?"

"Y'know we didn't mean to do that prank on the little girl."

"Sadly I don't know that," Naruko stated dryly. "Now, is that all? Because I want to know why the hell didn't you make yourself disappear? You know that we don't want too many people in this village to know what we can do."

"Well…we saw a ship?" The shadow clone offered meekly.

Naruko blinked her eyes and Sokka looked at the shadow clone with interest. The blonde groaned, realizing the look on the older boy's face. He wanted to interrogate her clone about the ship and he wouldn't rest until he knew every single detail that her shadow clone knew, from the colour of the ship to its flag.

"Was it a Fire Nation ship?"

"How am I supposed to know?" The shadow clone retorted. "I've never seen a Fire Nation ship before."

"Well did it have a flag of the Fire Nation?" Sokka demanded.

"It did have the flag," The shadow clone answered thoughtfully.

"Did it have the symbol of fire in it?"

Naruko flickered her eyes at the clone and watched as her clone pondered over his question very seriously. She really didn't understand Sokka's obsession with the Fire Nation or Katara's blatant hatred of the nation. Those two seemed to have some idea that everyone in the Fire Nation was evil or something like that, Sokka more then Katara. Why couldn't they understand that not everyone in an evil country was actually evil?

"I guess so," The shadow clone finally responded.

The blonde frowned at this response while Sokka grimaced at this piece of information, looking as if his suspicions were confirmed. He flickered his eyes at her clone, who stood there uncomfortably as she waited for an order from her. Naruko sighed and released the jutsu, mentally groaning as the memories of her shadow clone rushed through her mind.

Sokka scowled at her and the blonde rolled her eyes before saying to him, "The ship doesn't look like it's heading for the village."

"First off, how do you know? And second off that's what they want you to think."

"Stop being so damn paranoid, Sokka! The ship isn't coming here!" Naruko answered coldly. "And to answer your question about how I know is because of the fact that as soon as my shadow clone disappear, I know everything it sees."

"So what did that shadow clone see then?"

Naruko held up a finger as she went through the memories of her clone. It seemed like her clone had gone up on the cliff when she finished catching the fish, and was goofing off until it saw a ship. It looked a lot similar to the ship that Katara had shown her when she first arrived, except not broken of course. It also looked kind of ancient; nothing like what Sokka described about what a Fire Nation ship should look like. The ship didn't seem to be having any plans, looking as if it was just passing by.

"The ship looked ancient, like the one that's near the village," Naruko finally responded and Sokka nodded his head, frowning as he waited for her to continue talking. "It seemed like that the ship is just passing by since my clone saw that it was going the other direction from the village."

"Did it have any weapons?"

"My clones were too far away to see if there was any weapons," Naruko answered. "But I'm going to guess by the looks of it that it wouldn't be too far to presume that there are weapons aboard."

Sokka opened his mouth to ask more question but was interrupted by the sight of Katara running inside the tent, ordering them to go outside as she introduced Aang to everyone in the village. Naruko raised her eyebrows at the girl but did as the girl asked, dragging Sokka by the neck before he could protest at the mere idea of introducing the younger boy to everyone in the village.

She let go of the boy as soon as they were in the village center. He glared at her as he rubbed his neck and Naruko gave him an innocent smile before looking at the other villagers, who all seemed confuse and tired. Each one of them seemed to have been dragged out of bed and Naruko wondered if Katara had bothered to actually wait till everyone was wide awake before introducing Aang to everyone else.

"I don't get why we have to come too!" Sokka grumbled as they waited for Katara to bring Aang out of the tent. "We already met the boy! And we have much better things to do then see her introduce everyone in the camp!"

"Like planning how to defeat the ship my shadow clone saw?"

Sokka nodded his head. "Yes, like that!"

"You've plenty of time to think of a plan to defeat the ship," Naruko rubbed her neck. "And besides, I doubt that the ship is going to attack us."

"We've to be prepared for anything."

"Right…"

The blonde would have added more to her word but it was in that moment, Katara pulled Aang out of the tent. The boy seemed confuse and a little bit tired although he had been sleeping for the past day or so. Maybe being stuck in ice could make anyone fall asleep? Well it would certainly make sense in her opinion. She arched her eyebrows at the sight of Katara holding Aang's hand. She wiggled her eyebrow suggestively at Katara, who shot a glare at her, and Naruko laughed out loud at this.

It was so easy to make Katara furious.

"Aang, this is the entire village," Katara said, letting go of his hand and gestured to everyone in the village before gesturing to him. "Entire village, Aang."

Aang bowed politely at them and Naruko smiled at this, giving the boy a small polite bow as a response. Sokka raised his eyebrow at her, looking confused at her politeness and she simply shrugged her shoulder at him. It seemed to be only fair that she should bowed back to the boy since he was being polite. She was rude yes but she did have some form of manners.

"Why are they all looking at me like that?" Aang asked, looking at them in confusion. "Did Appa sneeze on me?"

Naruko frowned at his question and looked at everyone, who were all still gawking at Aang and the blonde was confused at this. Why were they all seemed so shock at the sight of Aang? Was there something wrong with him? Or was there something else? Did they think he was Fire Nation like Sokka or was there something else in their mind? It must be the latter because the women would have run with their children by now.

She watched as Gran Gran pushed through the crowd and now stood before Aang, who was currently inspecting his clothes. Gran Gran narrowed her eyes at Aang and said, "Well, no one has seen an airbender in a hundred years. We thought they were extinct until my grandchildren and Naruko found you."

"Extinct?" Aang muttered.

"You know doesn't exist anymore," Naruko answered.

"Naruko, that isn't helping," Katara said sharply.

"What? I'm just explaining what the word mean," The blonde answered as she walked towards Aang. She looked at him closely and chuckled when the boy shifted in his spot uneasily. "Don't be scared, I ain't going to do anything to you. Except maybe prank you if you get in my bad side."

"Prank me?"

"Naruko is infamous in our village for her pranks."

"Really?" Naruko asked, tilting her head and gave Katara an innocent look.

"Is there anyone else in this village called Naruko?" Sokka asked sarcastically.

"Sadly, no."

Sokka grimaced and opened his mouth to say something to her before shaking his head and looked at Aang. He tilted his head and looked at the staff that Aang held, frowning as he did so before snatching it from his hand. Naruko raised her eyebrows at this. What the hell was Sokka planning? If he was planning to get pay back for what she had said then that wasn't going to happen. That thing would barely touch and certainly didn't look like it could seriously hurt her.

"What is this, a weapon?" Sokka asked as he inspected the staff. "You can't stab anything with this."

"It's not for stabbing," Aang answered as he created a jet of air, sucking the staff back to his hand and as soon as it was in his hands, he opened the staff. Naruko's eyes widened slightly when she saw that staff was also a glider with red wings. "It's for airbending."

"What do you use it for?" Naruko asked, looking at the glider with interest. "Do you use it to help you fight? Make a cool breeze? Or have some fun?"

"Well, it lets me control the air currents around my glider and so I guess it allows me to make a breeze, and I don't really use it to fight," Aang said and Naruko nodded. "It also allows me to fly."

Sokka looked at him skeptically and stated, "You know, last time I checked, humans can't fly."

"And you've been out in the world before, right?" Naruko asked.

"Well no but it makes common sense."

"Your idea of common sense is very different from my idea of common sense," Naruko stated, folding her arms together. "Where I come from that wouldn't seem to be too difficult to believe."

"The place where you come from is weird."

"And this place, isn't?" Naruko asked, narrowing her eyes at him. "My home isn't weird, it's just different from the world you're brought up in. I bet if you had grew up there then you'd think that this world is strange."

"I wouldn't know that, now would I?"

"No you wouldn't," Naruko agreed. Sokka nodded his head and opened his mouth to continue their discussion but closed his mouth when he saw that Aang had crashed into his guard tower. Naruko rubbed her forehead, realizing just what was about to happen and watched as Aang pulled his head out of the tower, falling to the ground with his glider during the process.

"My watchtower!" Sokka finally said, looking at his ruined watchtower in sadness before running towards the damaged watchtower. Naruko bit her lips and wondered if it would be a good idea if she just made a few shadow clones to fix the damage but thought better against it. Sokka would freaked out if she did that since she was the girl, and girls weren't suppose to do manly stuff. She snorted at the thought.

She laughed out loud when a huge bank of snow buried Sokka, covering her smile with the sleeve of her jacket. She walked towards the huge bank of snow and took Sokka out of the snow, shaking her head as he muttered a thank you before scowling at Aang.

"Great. You're an airbender. Katara is a waterbender," Sokka said as he tried to get rid of the snow from his clothes. "Naruko believes she's a shinobi, whatever the hell that is, together the three of you can waste time all day long."

"And what do you do?" Naruko crossed her arms and glared at the boy. "You aren't that much better, Katara does some work. You on the other hand don't do a lot of chores, always standing around, waiting for a nation that isn't going to attack the village. You need to do some work too!"

"I do work!"

"Really now? Why is that so hard for me to believe?"

"Do I look like I know the answer? I'm not you," Sokka crossed his arms. "And I need to protect the village, I promise my Dad that I'll protect the village, protect my sister and that means being prepared if any Fire Nation comes here and attack us."

"And as I said to you before, there's very little chance of that happening," Naruko grimaced and looked out at the village. "If I was in the Fire Nation, I wouldn't bother attacking a village that doesn't have much to offer me in the war effort."

"Are you saying that our village is useless!"

"I'm not saying, Sokka. Your village is very useful in my opinion but to a country going to war, your village isn't going to be much use," Naruko felt a bitter taste in her words. "If you've something useful, like diamonds and all that then yeah, they will come but your village doesn't have that. If your village was threatening then they'll come however, there's nothing here to threaten them. All of the men are gone and only women and children are here, both of whom won't be much use because they can't fight and have no weapons that threatened them."

"But my boomerang would threaten them!"

"If used properly," Naruko said calmly as she stared at Aang, the boy had his tongue stuck on the staff. "But the way I see it, you're not using it properly. If your aim was good then perhaps that would be a fearsome weapon. If you use your head creatively then you would be able to defeat this Fire Nation."

"Creatively? You mean make plans and stuff?"

"Well that too," Naruko said, staring at Sokka thoughtfully. "I mean think outside of the box, make plans that your enemy will never think of. Surprise them. Something like that. In my opinion, the best way to win a war is to surprise them."

"But how do you surprise a nation that seemed to be impossible to surprise?"

"You'll find a way," Naruko grinned. "I should know because I'm supposed to be known as the most unpredictable ninja."

"Unpredictable, yeah. Ninja, no."

"Why do you insist that I'm not a ninja?"

"Have you seen yourself? You're not exactly the most subtle person," Sokka said and Naruko scowled at his words. Who said that being a shinobi meant that you had to be subtle? There were a lot of people who she knew that weren't subtle and they were supposed to be best shinobis. She scowled. And she could be subtle when she wanted to be; she just chose not to be subtle.

Naruko sighed and smiled softly as Sokka began interrogating Aang again, causing Katara to look at the older boy in annoyance. No matter how much she complained about them and disliked being away from her home, she couldn't deny that she did feel at home in this village, with those two siblings.

That's why she would do anything to protect those two from getting hurt.

* * *

Naruko frowned as she watched Sokka trained the young boys of the village on how to fight. Their posture was all wrong and that was saying something from her, since she wasn't exactly a person well known for her fighting skills. But it was so bad that even she could see a mistake told her just how well those kids would survive if they ever fought. She had tried teaching them but Sokka had stated that he didn't want them to learn from a girl, even refusing her help. She would have fought him about it but she didn't want to get into a trouble with Gran-Gran about it.

Naruko fought back the urge to correct their posture, stiffening as Sokka continued to show them the stances. It was all so wrong. She could take out her kunai and stab those kids on the ribs because they weren't protecting it properly. Clutching their neck was also easy because they weren't protecting it. If she could see it, then what would happen if a real killer came here and saw this?

They would die before even hitting the killer.

The sound of an explosion going off broke her from her musing and Naruko looked up to see a flare shooting up to the sky. What the hell was happening? Why was there a flare going off? A memory rushed through her mind as she stared out at the flare. Gran-Gran and Katara had told her about the abandoned Fire Nation's ship and how they believed that there could be some booby-traps that the Fire Nation had set up on it.

But what would have set it off? And why now?

"This is bad," Sokka muttered and Naruko turned her head around, surprised to see that the older boy was beside her and not training the kids. She flickered her eyes around the area and grimaced as the children ran to their mothers, who were trying their hardest not to look distress. "If that Fire Nation ship sees it, then…"

"Then the village is in trouble," Naruko finished the sentence quietly, frowning at this. "If the Fire Nation is as you and Katara described then we need to evacuate the kids, women, and elderly out of here. We can't let them get hurt."

"The problem is where can we evacuate them? Dad never thought that ahead and we can't allow them to stay in the tents," Naruko nodded her head in agreement. "They won't show any mercy to them."

"People don't generally show mercy in war, if they did then I've to say that those are the few decent people in the world," Naruko said quietly. She stood up high and made the hand-seals for the shadow clones. Sokka jumped up at the sight of the clones, looking at the clones and then to her in confusion before raising his eyebrows at her.

She grimaced and answered his silent question, "I know I promise your Gran-Gran and you that I won't use it in front of the villagers but the village is in trouble. We need to know if the Fire Nation is coming and if it is, then we need to know what to do. What to plan for. We can't just sit here and watch the village get attack."

Sokka frowned and nodded his head. He stared at her as she gave orders to her shadow clones to go patrol the area and that if they see the Fire Nation ship heading this way then they will need to pop themselves. For once her clones didn't make any wise cracks or jokes or acted in a way that annoyed her. This time her clones stood there motionlessly and nodded their heads solemnly before running all over the direction.

If the situation weren't so dire then she would have wondered if the world was ending.

"Now we have to wait for you clones to pop themselves, to see what we need to do?" Sokka asked and Naruko nodded her head. "In that case, it's time for us to prepare our defenses."

"Don't do that just yet," Naruko said sternly.

"Why not?"

"We need to figure out what the ship contains, the number of weapons, the number of people there and also find out if it will actually hurt the villagers," The blonde responded quickly as the two of them made their way out of the village. They stood in the road. "If we immediately put the defenses and attack them, and only to find out that they won't attack then we're in deep shit."

"Why? They'll attack us anyways," Sokka replied and Naruko snorted, causing the older boy to frown at her response.

"You might be right but you might also be wrong," Naruko informed him. "If it turns out that they weren't going to attack us then we'll cause trouble to the village. Because for all we know, the man in charge might just be curious and wouldn't have hurt the village and in that cause, it'll make your village no better than the nation you hate. It'll also cause a war, a war that your father wants to stop. Do you want that to happen?"

"Of course not," Sokka said. "But it's the Fire Nation. Of course, they'll attack us."

"Just because one man wants to cause war, doesn't mean that the rest of the man wants to as well," Naruko said firmly. "If that was the case then you're breeding more hatred and more hatred, means more pain, more pain leads to more war. And while I haven't seen the full effects of war, doesn't mean that you haven't. Tell me do you wish to see another war, Sokka?"

"Of course not," Sokka said, frowning at her. "But still…"

"I know you want to protect the village but believe me when I say that you shouldn't do the defenses first or attack them first. But if you insist on the defenses, then you should make it subtle," Naruko said and Sokka nodded his head.

They would have continued discussing about what they should do if they haven't saw Aang and Katara walking up the path. Naruko felt herself stiffened when she saw the guilty look on Katara's face. Why would Katara look so guilty? She wouldn't look like that unless…she frowned when she realized what would cause Katara to give a look like that. It seemed like Sokka realized too as he stared at his little sister and Aang with fury.

"You signaled the Fire Navy with that flare!" Sokka yelled, pointing his finger at Aang. "You're leading them straight to us, aren't you?"

Katara scowled and snapped, "Aang didn't do anything. It was an accident."

"Yeah, we were on the ship and there was this booby trap and well…" Aang explained as he put his hand to his head and Naruko frowned at the pair of them. "We 'boobied' right into it."

"What the two of you did was fucking idiotic," Naruko said firmly, looking at the two of them with fury. "Especially you, Katara! Aang didn't know but you, you knew and yet you allowed him to go there! You told me that there were going to be booby-traps there and warned me about them but yet, you went there with him, knowing what can happen! Now we need to worry about that Fire Nation ship coming here!"

"You shouldn't blame Katara!" Aang protested. "I brought her there! She warned me!"

"The traitor confesses!" Sokka declared and he winced when Naruko slapped him in the head. He opened his mouth to argue with her but closed his mouth immediately at the sight of the silent cold fury in her eyes. It was lucky that Sokka knew by now that there was a time when he shouldn't be speaking to her.

"I'm blaming the both of you then," Naruko said icily, looking at the pair of them with fury. "If Katara told ya not to go there then listen to her! And Katara should have continued insisting that you don't go there, there's a reason why people don't go there. There's a reason why they believed there was bobby traps and the villagers were right! A flare went up to the sky, there's a Fire Nation ship nearby and I think Katara, you know what that means…"

"I didn't mean for it to happen."

"Well, it's too late now isn't it?" Naruko asked sarcastically. She winced as the memory of one of her clones rushed through her mind. One of them had already seen the Fire Nation ship and from the looks of things, the ship was heading towards the village. She gritted her teeth at this. By the speed of it, it seemed like it would reach in half-an-hour tops and that didn't give enough time to evacuate the elderly.

"Naruko, what's wrong?" Sokka asked, staring at her in concern.

"They are coming and by the looks of it, they'll be here in half-an-hour," Naruko said quietly and Sokka frowned at her response. "That isn't enough time to evacuate the elderly and children or the woman. They don't look like they will attack but we can't take the chance. We can't let anyone get hurt."

"W-What do you mean?" Aang asked.

"Naruko had sent her shadow clonie thingy to see if the Fire Nation ship would come here and from what her clone reported, it will be here in half-an-hour," Katara's eyes widened and Sokka continued. "Thanks to what the pair of you do, the village is endangered! I can't banish Katara but I'll banish the airbender."

"You're making a mistake!" Katara said angrily.

"No, I'm keeping a promise to Dad. I'm protecting you from threats like him!"

"Naruko, talk to him!"

"Normally I'll agree with you, Katara but with what just happened and for Aang's safety as well as the village's safety, it'll be best if he leaves," Naruko said quietly and Katara looked at her as if she had been betrayed. The blonde crossed her arms and shook her head, giving her the silent message that she wouldn't change her mind about this or reason with Sokka about it.

"But Aang brought us something we haven't had in a long time. Fun."

"He may have brought fun to your life, Katara and to the other villagers but it doesn't change the fact that he caused an army of Fire Nation to come here," Naruko said firmly, looking at Aang apologetically. "Your village is in danger and it'll be in more danger if Aang stays there, if you care for your village then you won't question your brother's action. If you care for Aang's safety then you realize that he needs to stay away, because I don't want another person to get hurt. We can't evacuate the elderly, the children or the women but we can make sure that Aang gets to safety, which is in this case is for him to leave."

"B-But…"

"When it's over then Aang can come back here and you can have all the fun, you want," Naruko said firmly. "Right Sokka?"

Sokka shook his head at her and Naruko rolled her eyes, before stomping her feet on his foot and immediately the boy yelped in pain. She shot him another look and he shakily nodded his head, telling Katara that Aang could come back anytime. Katara opened her mouth to continue arguing but one cold look from Naruko made her close her mouth and agreed. If there was one thing that was well known to the village was that you didn't want to make Naruko furious.

A furious Naruko wasn't a Naruko that you want to deal with and with that thought in mind; Katara said her goodbyes to Aang. If it had been just Sokka then she would continue arguing but Naruko wasn't someone she wanted to argue. Naruko wasn't someone she wanted as an enemy.

Anyone who knew Naruko would agree that the girl wasn't someone that you wished to face in battle.

* * *

It was the smell of burning smoke in the air that alerted Naruko that the Fire Nation ship was very close to the village. The smell was horrible, reminding her of the forests that had been burned and the thought of her home made her sick to the bone. The smell was so horrible that she was surprised that she hadn't wince in disgust yet.

"Do you see them yet?" Sokka asked as he climbed up his watchtower, standing beside her. Naruko raised her eyebrows at the sight of his face being painted. For some strange reason, she was reminded of Kankuro when she saw his painted face. The puppet user also used paint on his face but he used it everyday, while Sokka never seemed to use it.

"What! It's war paint!" Sokka said angrily.

"Really? I thought it was make-up," Naruko said teasingly. "I mean it brought up the female features of your face!"

Sokka scowled and looked at his boomerang, searching for anything that made him look feminine. The blonde laughed out loud, shaking her head at her friend's vain attitude. Maybe it would have been a good idea if she hadn't told her friend about it and tell him that it had been just a joke. She watched as Sokka continued searched frantically for anything that made him looked like a female.

It would be better if she kept it as a secret.

She gathered chakra to her feet as she felt the ground rumbled and watched as Sokka tried not to fall down from his watchtower. Naruko grimaced at the sight of the ice cracked and frowned even more when she saw Katara ushering the kids to safety and putting Gran-Gran in one of the tents. This wasn't right. Kids shouldn't be seeing things like this. Kids should still be innocent but the kids here were now going to lose that innocence.

She hated this and she would find another way for those kids not to lose it. Kids didn't need to learn suffering. Kids didn't need to have to learn hardship. She didn't want them to have the life that she had. She certainly didn't want them to have to deal with any of this. If she could stop the confrontation, then she would be happy but if she couldn't then she would make sure the confrontation wasn't too long.

"Sokka, Naruko, get out of the way!"

Naruko blinked her eyes and was taken back by the sight of the ship reaching the wall. She jumped down from the wall, dragging a protesting Sokka as she did so. She watched as the steam wafted up from the bow, and scowled as they split the ice. She wanted to yell at the villagers for coming out, but couldn't since they would be furious with her taking charge for their village. It wasn't her home and she was still a foreigner in their ways.

Still, she needed to help them in anyway she could.

Naruko stood beside Sokka as the bowsprit of the ship opened and folded out down onto the village's group. She clenched her hands into a fist as a thick layer of smoke began to disperse and curled her lips as a bunch of men in light armor marched down the slope. She flickered her eyes at Sokka and grimaced when she saw that the boy was about to attack the men. With a sigh, she pulled Sokka back, preventing him from attacking the men.

She kept her hand on Sokka's shoulder as what appeared to be the leader of the men walked towards the villagers. Naruko glanced her eyes at the other village and drew a calm breath as the villagers stepped a few steps back. She dragged Sokka as they made their way to the rest of the villagers. She kept her eyes firmly on the leader, who now stood to address them.

"Where are you hiding him?"

"Him?" Naruko asked, staring hard at him. "Who's this him that you're talking about?"

The man flickered his eyes at her and Naruko was taken back to see that the man was nothing but a teenage boy, only a few years older than her. "Well? Who's this him that you're talking about?" she repeated. "We can't help you if you don't tell us."

"The Avatar!" The boy snapped.

"Can't say we have met the avatar," Naruko said cheerfully. "If we did then wouldn't it have been all over the news or something? But if we did meet him then I'm certain that we would tell ya."

The villagers behind her gawked at her while Sokka and Katara looked at her in surprise. She didn't understand why they seemed so shock or looked at her in disbelief. She wasn't really going to tell the guy if the avatar was here or not. To be honest, she didn't even know what the hell the boy was talking about.

The boy stared hard at her and Naruko knew from his expression that he didn't believe her about having not met the avatar. None of them did. Wouldn't someone in the village recognize this avatar person? If he was so important then he must be someone that was easily recognizable. She nodded her head at this thought and stared at the teenage boy.

Naruko took a deep breath as he grabbed Gran-Gran from Katara, showing her to the villagers and continued to ask impatiently, "He would be about this age?"

"Listen to me teme, we haven't met a guy around Gran-Gran age," Naruko said firmly as she snatched Gran-Gran from his arms, leading the shaken woman back to Katara. "We haven't met the Avatar and if that's the only reason why you're here then I suggest that you leave. You won't find the Avatar here."

"I don't believe you," The teenage boy said angrily.

"Fine, don't believe me!" Naruko said, crossing her arms. "But I do suggest that you leave before you get hurt…you're ten seconds away from your face meeting my fist!"

The teenage boy glared at her and launched gout of flames over the villager's heads. Naruko curled her lips and did the one thing that surprised everyone; she punched him in the face. The boy barely dodged her punched and Naruko retreated her fist. He looked at her angrily and she smiled sweetly at him.

"That's a warning," Naruko said, smiling at him. "Next time, you injure another member of this tribe and ya better your damn ass that I'll hurt ya so bad that you'll regret that you were ever born or make it impossible for you to have kids. Take your pick, but either way I'll hurt ya for what you did to the villagers."

He snorted at her words and Naruko found her eyebrows twitching at this. She barely blinked her eyes when the teenage boy tried to hit her. She immediately dodged his attacks and punched and kicked him whenever he left an opening. The boy was better than Sokka in fighting skills but he was still poor, compared to the genins and chunins of her village. Naruko felt her lips curling into a smile when she heard the awe grasps of everyone in the village and the frightened looks on the soldiers' faces.

She kicked him down and took her kunai, pointing it close to his neck. "Now, I'm going to give you two options: A) you leave this place and never come back or B) I kill you and everyone in your ship for doing what you did, pick your option," Naruko said coldly, her eyes having no emotions as she stared at the boy's furious golden eyes.

"Neither."

"I was afraid you'll say that," Naruko said and she put her kunai down. Quickly, she formed the hand-seals and fifty Shadow Clones appeared. The boy's eyes widened along with the other soldier's eyes. "Now look here, you're outnumbered. There's five of you and there…"

"Fifty of us!" One of her clones piped. "And we're not going to be easy for ya to beat!"

"Like my clone said, they aren't going to be easy to defeat," Naruko said, standing up and dusting off her clothes. "And if I give the order then everyone from you to the members inside the ship will be killed! And if you care for your crew then you'll leave this village and never come back."

"No."

"Alright," Naruko said and she nodded her head to her clone. The boy's eyes widened in shock and before she realized the boy yelled at her to stop. She frowned and gestured for her clone to stop, looking at the boy in interest as he looked at her hastily and then to the rest of the villagers. He eyed her clones wearily and then stared at her, scowling as he noticed that her clones had the same features as her.

"I'll leave but only in one condition," The teenage boy snapped as he dusted the snow off his armor.

"No conditions."

"Then I'll kill the villagers," The teenage boy said angrily and Naruko gulped when she saw that one of his soldiers were getting closer to the little kids. She couldn't let that happened. "If you want to see these villagers safe then you'll follow that one condition."

Naruko licked her cracked lips at his words. "What's the condition?"

Everyone in the village looked at her in shock. She gave them a reassuring smile before turning her attention to the boy. "What's this condition? And how do I know that you'll keep to your promise?"

"Simple, I want you to come with me and in return then I won't kill the villagers," the boy said and Naruko looked at him thoughtfully. She could tell that it was taking all of his willpower not to be angry with her, through the boy seemed to be easily angered.

"No harm to them? No killing of any of them?" Naruko asked.

The teenage boy stiffly nodded his head and the blonde looked at the villagers, all of whom looked like they didn't want her to leave. The little kids were crying, Sokka was gritting his teeth and Katara looked furious, the adults looked heartbroken and scared. She licked her lips and sighed. She knew what her decision was. She was just said that it had to be this.

"I'll do it."

Just as soon as she said this, a small blur appeared and to her surprise and awe, it was Aang and he was riding a penguin. She grinned as the young boy swept the older boy by his feet and she could hear everyone in the village cheering for him. She smiled wider when she saw that Aang had been pushed off, helping him up. He shot a grateful look at her.

"Hey Katara. Hey Naruko. Hey Sokka. And um another Naruko…why is there a lot of copies of Naruko?"

"I'll tell you about that later," Naruko stated and the boy furrowed his eyebrows before looking over at the Firebenders. She chuckled at the sight of Zuko getting to his feet and assumed some kind of stance. Naruko looked at Aang. There were several men that surrounded him and Naruko discreetly signaled the clones to beat them up, surprising Aang but he smiled gratefully at her.

"Looking for me?" Aang asked, staring at the boy.

"You're the airbender? You're the Avatar?" The boy asked incredulous.

"I think when he said that, that kind of means that he's stating that he's the Avatar," Naruko stated dryly and the teenage boy glared at her. She held her hands defensively, tilting her head as the teenage boy and Aang circled around each other.

"I've spent years preparing for this encounter," the boy said-his tone still incredulous and frustrated. "Training. Meditating. You're just a child."

"Well, you're just a teenager."

Naruko curled her hands into a fist as Zuko fired two blast of fire at Aang and nearly hit the teenage boy as Aang cried out in fear. Luckily that urge to hit was gone when Aang dissipated each blast of fire with his staff, twirling it like a spinning wheel. Her clones immediately ran in front of the villagers, protecting them from the fire. She cried out in pain as each one of her clones popped due to fire. She could feel the burning sensation from their memories and nearly hit herself because of it.

Aang looked at her in concern and Naruko waved her hand at his concern, his frown deepened and he turned to look at Zuko. "If I go with you, will you promise to leave everyone alone?"

Naruko shook her head at this while the teenage boy straightened up, nodding stiffly at him. A soldier took his staff and led the boy to the ship before looking at her expectantly. She glanced at the teenage boy and he raised his eyebrows, furiously gesturing for her to go with the soldier. She glared at him and reluctantly made her way towards the ship with a soldier behind her.

"No, Naruko, Aang! Don't do this!" Katara yelled

"We'll be fine," Naruko stated firmly as she took another step forward. "I won't let anything happen to us, so there's nothing for you to worry about! Just take care of everyone in the village like you usually do and before you even realize it, we'll be back."

Jus as soon as she said this, Zuko announced.

"Head course to the Fire Nation. I'm going home."

For some strange reason, Naruko knew right in that moment that she was screwed.

* * *

**I would like to thank you for reading.**

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**I would like to hear your thoughts on what you thought about this chapter.**


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

A/N: I want to thank everyone who reviewed and added this to their favorites and follows.

* * *

Naruko craned her head as she entered the ship, furrowing her eyebrows as the stream kept hitting her face. She could feel the sweat forming in her face, dripping and clinging to her skin as she took each step forward. If she wasn't so tied up, she would definitely wipe her face off of the sweat. The heat of the steam was definitely too much for her.

She rubbed her hands together, hoping that it would ease the ache of the heavy rope that was tied firmly on her wrist. Naruko grimaced as she felt the pain in her wrist doubled, realizing that rubbing her arms together to ease the pain wasn't going to work. This was really going to be a huge pain in her backside. How the hell was she going to stop the pain if she couldn't do this? She couldn't do any jutsu to get out of here…

No, wait there was that one jutsu that they were taught in the Academy. That jutsu might be able to get her out of the ropes. It might also be the only way that she could escape from this hellhole of a ship. She glanced at the boy leading them and then to Aang, shaking her head as she did so. She couldn't leave this place. She gave her word that she would go with him and she always kept her word, besides she couldn't leave Aang here.

It just wouldn't be right.

They stopped walking when they reached the foredeck where a couple of men where waiting for them. Most of the men in the room were around their thirties or forties, but only one man seemed to be in his late fifties or early sixties. Out of those men, he seemed to be the friendliest looking one. She mentally shook her head at this thought. He might look friendly but he might actually be one. He might be some sadist. It wouldn't be the first time, the friendliest people were actually more aggressive then they look.

The Hokage had told her when she was younger that she shouldn't trust someone just because of their appearance. At the age of eight, she didn't understand what he meant about that, as she had been such a naïve child. Now at the age of fourteen and half, she knew that his words had some meaning. She only had to learn from her mistake to know that he was right.

Sighing, Naruko turned her head to look at her captor but he simply didn't look at her. Instead, he focused his attention to the old man in front of him, who was too busy staring at her. Now that she thought about it, almost all of those men were staring at her as if she was some weirdo. It was almost like they had never seen a blond girl before.

Well maybe they hadn't seen one before but even if that was the case, they shouldn't be staring at her.

"Can all of you stop staring at me? Or at my hair?" Naruko said irritably, breaking the tension in the room. Everyone blinked their eyes and stared at her even more. She sighed. "It's almost like you have never seen a blond-haired girl before."

"No one in the world have yellow hair," the old man spoke, smiling at her. "You're the first person, I've seen that have such beautiful hair colour before."

"I knew that no one in the water tribe haven't seen it before but I would have thought that a couple of Fire Nation soldiers would have seen hair like mine," Naruko frowned and turned to the scarred boy that stood beside her. "Now that I think about it, what are ya planning to do to me? And Aang?"

"You'll be of use to my father," the boy stated. "You'll be able to teach the soldiers the technique that you used to protect those villagers."

"Can't do that."

"Why not?" The boy asked, glaring at her.

Naruko shrugged and answered, "You guys ain't capable of doing that. None of you in this room could use Kage Bunshin. Only I can."

"Well make them capable!"

"There's something that you need to do what I did. And that something is something that you're either born with and had accessed from a young age or not," Naruko answered, narrowing her eyes. "Either you're born with it or not. And from what I can sense none of your soldiers are capable of doing that technique. In fact no one in this room can do this except me."

"How do you know it if you don't even try?" The boy asked angrily, staring hard into her eyes. "I demand that you teach the soldiers what you did."

Naruko glared at the boy and retorted, "And who do you think you are to demand me to teach huh? I'm not your servant and I've the right to refuse something like this. If I say I can't teach them and that they aren't capable, then I say they aren't capable of doing it! You're not forcing me to teach them!"

"You'll do as I say, you're my prisoner!"

"A prisoner that can beat your damn ass!"

"You were just lucky."

"Lucky? I kicked your ass in five seconds," Naruko said, scowling at him. "Now, you on the other hand had been lucky that I agreed to your conditions or else I would have punched you in the face and find some way that you won't have kids because of what you did. So ya damn lucky that I was being merciful to you."

"I won't be beaten by you ever again."

"You will if you keep that stupid attitude up."

Everyone stared at them, looking at her and then to the boy in surprise while Aang simply gawked at her. Everyone could feel the electricity blazing between them as they glared at each other. It was so bad that they could practically see the blue bolts of electricity that was appearing out of their eyes.

"Ok, I'll teach them."

The boy looked stunned at her sudden acceptance and Naruko smirked. "I'll teach them but only in one condition. You let Aang out."

"I want you to teach them but I'm not desperate. I'm not letting him out."

"And why the hell not?"

"He's the Avatar," The boy said, looking at her as if she's an idiot.

"So what? He's a boy," Naruko scowled. "A young boy that could do no harm to you. I don't know why you treat him as if he could do that…he isn't the kind of boy that would do harm, right?"

Aang stood up straight at her words and nodded his head, shooting the boys an innocent look and that caused the blond to shoot an annoyed look at him. That might had been funny with Sokka but it wasn't funny. She was bargaining for his life. Bargaining for his freedom and he dared to give such looks to them? Was he even being serious now? Well for his sake, she hoped so.

"That doesn't matter," The boy snapped.

"It should," Naruko said, looking at him straight in the eye. "From what I heard, your people are murderers and while I don't want to believe that…I'm not taking the chance of a young boy getting murdered for something out of his control. I may not know your reason for wanting him so badly but I do know that if you're truly a human being then you would feel guilt for sending him to his death. I know I will if I were in your shoes."

"Naruko…" Aang muttered as he stared at her in newfound light.

"I'm just saying the truth Aang," Naruko answered, flashing him a smile. "I might have yelled at you and Katara for what you did but it doesn't mean that I want you to get hurt or god forbid die. You're a kid, who isn't that much older then me," her voice broke as a memory rushed through her mind and for a brief moment, she wanted to cry at the memory but she kept herself together as she continued with her words, "you're a kid just like my friend Konohamaru and like him you do stupid things. Through, what you did was more dangerous then what he did to Sakura."

"What a touching scene," Zuko said as he examined the staff in his hand before turning his attention to Aang, "The staff will make an excellent gift for my father. I suppose you don't know anything about fathers, being raised by monks."

Naruko looked at Aang and saw the smile on his face. Shaking her head, she stared firmly at the ground, trying hard not to look at the younger boy. If she looked at him then she felt like she was going to smother the boy and tell him that she understood his feelings about not knowing anything about fathers. She wanted to tell him that it wasn't a big deal about not knowing one and how it wasn't that important to have one. She grew up without knowing the love of a father and she turned out just fine.

Well mostly fine.

"Take the Avatar and the girl to the prison hold," The boy said as he handed the staff to the old man. "Take this to my quarters."

Naruko scowled as the guards pushed her and Aang to move. This wasn't fair in anyway for them. They hadn't done anything to deserve this cruel treatment…well she did but definitely not the boy beside her. She had beaten up their leader and that did deserve him having the right to be angry with her but Aang, he hadn't done anything wrong. He hadn't even fought the guy properly. All he did was simply tried to defend the villagers, which by the way she was doing a great job until he had thought that he needed to rescue them.

If Aang hadn't come then maybe he wouldn't be in this dreadful situation, wouldn't have to worry about being stuck on a ship filled with people that wanted to murder him.

She glanced around and noticed that there were in another hallway filled with pipes and other mechanical things that she was just too tired to name. Naruko flickered her eyes at Aang. The boy seemed to have a thoughtful look on his face and she knew from the wicked gleam in his eyes that he was planning something. But what was he planning she can't be certain. Through she could always guess what it was.

"So I guess, you've never fought an airbender before," Aang said slyly and Naruko raised her eyebrows. He grinned at her and mouthed the words 'don't worry, I got a plan' before continuing, "I bet I can take the both of you with my hands tied behind my back."

Naruko blinked and blinked before realization dawned upon her on why Aang had said this. It was a smart plan really. He made it seem like he was boasting and that he wouldn't do it but if one were to take a closer look at him, then they would realize he wasn't joking and that he was preparing to attack. To be honest, it would be something she would have done if she weren't too busy being concern about the boy.

She heard the guard behind her snot at his words and Naruko bit her lips to stop the smile that was threatening to come out. This was going to be the guards' biggest mistake. Underestimating someone because of their age and gender was stupid because anybody could be threat. Every shinobi knew this and that was why when she and the other were in the Academy, they used to tell them that when they become shinobi that they should be weary of people they meet and to be cautious. Not everything was what it seemed.

But to make it less complicated, is what Kakashi used to tell her team, a shinobi must look underneath the underneath.

They stopped in front of a door and Naruko watched in a baited breath as one of the guards moved to open the door with a key. She chuckled quietly, watching Aang as he drew great breath and this caused the guards to look at her with strictness and confusion. She smiled innocently and pointed towards Aang, they frowned and looked at Aang, who decided that it was the best time to blow the guards away, literally.

She grinned as the guard with the key was knocked against the door and watched in fascination as Aang was propelled backwards, effectively knocking the guards behind them. Sadly, she wasn't exempted from the blast of wind. If she wasn't so tied up, she would have used chakra to stay balance but unfortunately that wasn't the case and she was sent crashing down the stairs with the guards behind them.

Each time she fell down a step, the pain grew and it wasn't till she down the last stair that the pain became too great but not enough for her to be knocked out like the other guards. Naruko stood up and stuck her tongue out at the unconscious guards before using one of their pointy helmets to break the ropes that were painfully tied to her hands.

_Snap._

The ropes fell down beside the unconscious guard, who didn't seem like he was going to be awake any time soon. Naruko rubbed her wrists, turned around and was about to run off to find Aang, only to find him running towards her with a worried look on his face.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…"

"Just give me a warning when you do something like that," Naruko frowned and looked at the unconscious guards before nodding her head. "Yeah, you need to get out of here. We can't have them realizing that you're free just yet and have them chasing you."

"What about you?" Aang asked, having noticed that she hadn't said we and instead use you.

Naruko looked at him with seriousness, crossing her arms against her chest and took a deep breath. "I want to come with you but I made a promise to the bastard and I always keep my promise," she smiled bitterly. "I promise him that I would go with him and I intent to keep my word, besides, someone needs to take the heat of what you did."

"But what about Katara and Sokka? What about the villagers?"

The blonde smiled at him and answered, "That's why I'm doing this. To protect them. He promised me that he wouldn't harm them if I came with him but only if I came with him. I can't take the chance that he will break that promise. If they die because of me, I'll never forgive myself. Those people took me in, a stranger, who could have been their enemy and yet they accepted me, healed me from my wounds and brought me the one thing I was so desperate to feel. Doing this is the only way; I know that I'm giving them back the same kindness they gave me. Besides, I always keep my word. Sokka and Katara know that and I think they would understand why I'm not with you."

"But there must be someone waiting for you in the village? What about your parents?"

Naruko shook her head and answered quietly, "My parents are dead Aang and the people that are really waiting for me…will never see me again. The people in the village will miss me but they will be fine without me, they have lived for fourteen years without me and they can live another couple of years without me."

"But they're your tribe aren't they?"

"I'm not from there, Aang," Naruko admitted and Aang frowned at her. "I'm not from this world. I…I don't belong in the tribe or in this world and the world, where I do belong is out of my reach. I can't go home because I've no way home and now I need to find a new place to live. A new place to belong."

"And you think you belong with them?" Aang asked, gesturing towards the unconscious guards. They paused when they heard the guards groaned and with a silent agreement, the two of them began to run away from the place.

"No," Naruko answered as they run out of the door. "I don't belong with them but I made a promise to their leader and I intend to keep that promise. You might not understand because you haven't grown up like me but if you grew up the way I did, you will start to understand the honor of promises."

"What do you mean?"

"In my home village, not many people keep their promises and those people are scrum," Naruko clenched her hands into a fist. "Those people don't care about whether you make a promise or not, all they care about is themselves and will break any promise they make. Those people make me sick to my stomach. That's why I keep my promise. I don't want scrum! If I make a promise then I'll very well keep it to my dying breath! And that's why I intent to keep my promise. Besides, it's bad enough I can't keep one promise but this is a promise that I can keep."

"Why can't you keep the other promise?"

Naruko took in a deep shakey breath as the memory of her waking up in the small village came through her mind and another image of a blood-lusting Sasuke came rushing through her mind along with a tear-sicken Sakura. With a painful heartbeat, she said softly, "Because I can't ever go back to my world to fulfill it. I can't fulfill a promise to my friend if I'm not there."

Aang stared at her with concern and she could tell that the boy wanted to ask her more question but shook his head. She gave him a grin and said, "Well since that's discussion is done and over with. It's time for you to get your stuff and get out of here. We can't have them chasing after you and Katara would be livid if she knew I let you stay with them."

"Right," Aang said, frowning at her.

"Don't worry about me, you go ahead and get your staff," Naruko cracked her knuckles. "And I'll be a good friend and distract them with my clones. In fact one of my clones can disguise as you while you do your search."

"Is that even possible?"

"Hell yes," Naruko gestured for one of her clone to use the henge jutsu and it was barely a second later, where the mirror image of Aang stood in front of them. Aang's eyes widened and without thinking, the younger boy poked her clone and winced when her clone slapped his hand away.

"I ain't some object you can inspect!" Her clone barked and Aang nodded his head, retreating his hand and smiled sheepishly at her clone. Naruko laughed out loud at his behavior, eyes twinkling in mirth as she shook her head. She smiled widely at the boy, who looked at her confusion.

"You are just like Sokka," Naruko explained. "He did the same thing when I did it the second time and my clones reacted the same way…maybe a little bit more violent to him then you," her smile was soon replaced with a sober expression. "Aang, can I trust you to keep Sokka and Katara safe? And that they don't do anything reckless or god forbid, let their anger cloud their judgment? I can't guide them or tell them what to do to get stronger or play mediator between them and I'm going to count on you to do that with them."

"You're acting as if you're going to die."

"I don't know what's going to happen," Naruko answered wisely. "For all I know, I might die tomorrow because I was being me, doing something stupid or the next time I see you guys, I might be an enemy but I doubt that will happen. I'll never hurt a friend or an acquaintance intentionally. I'll rather die before I do something like that again. That's why I'm telling you to leave and let me stay behind."

"But Naruko is this a good idea? Isn't it a little bit dangerous?"

"So? I've been through worst things," Naruko shrugged her shoulders. "Taking out a couple of guards and having them panic will be a piece of cake, compared to being nearly killed in my first real mission."

"N-Nearly killed," Aang squeaked.

Naruko nodded her head savagely. "Yeah I think after that mission, my life just went down the drain. It barely been a year since it happened and here I'm in a world that's nearly the opposite of my own. Who knew that all my pranking on the villagers would come and bite me in the ass, huh?"

Aang nodded his head, staring at her in confusion as he watched her do a couple of hand-seals. His eyes widened and he nearly yelled in shock at the sight of twenty clones standing in the hallway. Naruko covered her ears at the loudness of his voice. She had been doing this for so long by now that she should be used to people yelling in shock but till this day, she hadn't gotten used to this.

"Keep your voice down, will ya?" Naruko hissed at Aang as he stared at her clones, who all looked at the ship with vivid interest. "We can't have that idiotic, bad-tempered leader finding out that we're free."

"Y-Yes, mam."

"Good," Naruko crossed her arms. "Now, I'm going to have one of my clones district the guards by showing them that I've escaped. One of my clones will help you in searching that staff. While the others will simply be running all around the ship to make the leader confuse on where I might be."

"What about you?" Aang asked.

"I'm going to walk around the ship as well," Naruko placed her hand against the cold metallic walls of the ship. "If I'm going to be stuck here and everything, I'm going to find out every little detail of the ship from the number of people it has to the number of rooms they got."

"You know you could come…"

"I could come with you and go back to the village but I can't, not after I promise the guy that I would stay with him in return for him not harming the villagers," Naruko answered firmly, giving him a smile. "You've no idea on how tempting the offer is but I made a promise and I always try to keep to my promises. I never promise Katara or Sokka that I'll come back. All I promise them that I won't let anything happen to us and that's it. I never promise that I'll be back soon. I'll be fine Aang, I've been trained to deal with situations like these."

"But…"

"Go, Aang!" Naruko said firmly. "You don't have any time to waste."

"But…"

"Listen to boss!" one of her clones piped. "If she said that she can handle it then she can very well handle it! She wouldn't be saying this if she didn't think she could handle it! She's a lot more stronger then ya give her credit for!"

It seemed like that was enough for him to be convinced and without another word, he left along with two of her clones. Naruko glanced at her clones, who all stood nervously for her orders and with one small nod from her; they grinned and started to sprint, looking ready to bring the mayhem to this place.

The poor bastards won't know what hit them.

* * *

Everything about this ship screamed loneliness and sadness. There were no portraits hung on the walls of any of the rooms, no animals to keep the soldiers company and there were certainly no warmth in any of the soldiers eyes whenever she saw them while she walked above them. All she could see was misery and sadness as they ran around in circles, trying to find her clones.

Naruko shook her head and jumped down from the ceiling, knocking out two of the guards as she did so. She fixed her gaze at the opened door and frowned. There was something fishy about it and she knew that she shouldn't enter it, since it could be a trap and all but she was curious to know who would leave the door open.

So without any hesitance, she entered the room, nearly jumping back when she heard the door behind had slammed shut. Naruko turned her head around, rubbed her neck at the sight of the bad-tempered leader glaring at her. She smiled impishly and gave him an innocent shrug before saying:

"Well any chance I have of escaping is down the drain, isn't it?"

"You're not escaping this ship. Not you nor the Avatar."

Naruko shrugged her shoulder. "I wasn't really thinking of escaping. I can't escape now because I made a promise to you and I always keep a promise, so that means I'm not escaping. However Aang hadn't really given you his word since he does have a loophole in the promise that you practically forced him to give," she frowned and continued, "you know you really shouldn't underestimate Aang's intelligence or his strength. He'll escape this ship and there will be nothing you can do about it. He might be a kid but he's a kid that is a lot stronger then you think. Just because he's a kid doesn't mean he's weak," she chuckled. "After all, there are kids younger then you but stronger then me."

The boy looked pissed at her words and Naruko shook her head, staring at the Fire Nation symbol that was stitched on the tapestry in front of her before looking back at him. There was something about him that screamed kindness, something about him reminded her of someone. There was something in his eyes that reminded her of someone. She shook her head at this thought. This wasn't the time to think about the past.

"Why are you so insistent of taking him to the Fire Nation?" The boy stared at her in confusion before returning to a tense position, ready to attack her if she decided to escape. She shook her head and sat down on the floor, crossed-leg as she continued speaking. "He's a kid, y'know? A kid that isn't much younger then yourself, a kid that is confuse and have a huge burden on himself."

"You wouldn't understand," the boy growled.

"Probably not," Naruko agreed. "But I'm curious to know. Why would someone like you would do something like this?"

"Someone like me?"

"A nice guy," the boy seemed taken back at her words and she laughed. "Don't look so surprise, I think you're a nice guy but you just have a bad-temper and a little bit grumpy."

"You shouldn't make assumptions," The boy snapped.

"Definitely bad-tempered and I'm not making assumptions, I'm basing it off from what I've seen so far," Naruko stared hard at the older boy. "In the village, there were several times where you could have killed Aang and you yelled at me when I threatened the lives of your men. When you yelled at me, your eyes held panic and fear at the mere thought of me killing them. If you weren't nice then you wouldn't have done what you did."

"I'm not a nice guy."

"You're because you could have used your firebending on me when I entered but you didn't, instead you glared at me and looked ready to attack me," Naruko stood up and dusted the dirt off her clothes. "So in conclusion, I don't think you're a bad guy, just a guy that is just bad-tempered and have some issues."

"You speak too much."

"And you have a horrible temper."

She stared at him and rubbed her hands up and down her arms, hoping that it would ease the coldness that surrounded her. Coldness that reminded her of the tribe that she had left and the coldness had brought back memories of the few missions that she used to go with Team Seven, memories she wished to forget.

Sadly she couldn't forget about her old team or her friends in the village. There were still nights where she would woke-up in cold sweat from having a nightmare of her friends asking her why she had abandoned them. Some nights, she would wake up because of the memories of the orphanage and the loneliness she faced there. Those nights were always the worst. She would always wake up screaming and have sweat clung to her skin while Katara and Gran-Gran came to her tent, trying to see what was wrong and always thinking they could heal her from the pain.

No one could heal her from the pain. Tsunade-baachan couldn't find a way to ease the nightmares for her, the Hokage tried his hardest to help her but nothing they did would stop those dreadful nightmares from coming.

"About the order of me teaching your soldiers, I can't do it," Naruko finally said as the older boy stood up to leave. He turned around and crocked his one eyebrow at her. "Like I said before, I can't teach them something like that when they don't have the necessary thing to do it. And even if they did I wouldn't do it."

The older boy didn't say anything. His hand was now gripping the handle of the door but he gave no indication that he was going to turn it soon, and so she continued, "It isn't because I don't want to or anything like that but it's because that technique I use, can kill people if they don't have enough Chakra. My best friend tried to do it once and she…nearly killed herself doing it. That's why I refuse in the beginning."

The boy didn't say anything and opened the door. She watched silently as he rushed out of the door, the ponytail waving and left loud echoes of his footsteps as he dashed through the corridors, probably without any doubt searching for Aang and hoping to capture him.

Naruko frowned. If Aang got caught then she wouldn't forgive herself. It would be her fault if he got hurt because she had been too busy talking to the furious boy and not helping him escape from this ship. He needed to escape this ship in order to go back to the village and see Katara and Sokka, to show those two that she had kept her promise to them.

She needed to keep that promise.

"What are you doing here alone, child?" A voice asked. "Why aren't you with the Avatar?"

Naruko tensed at the sight of an elderly man standing behind her, a cup of tea in his hand and a jolly smile plastered on his face. That jolly smile made her think that he wouldn't do any harm towards her but she couldn't take the chance of him harming her.

"Because I promise the leader of this ship that I'll go with him if he left the villagers alone," Naruko said. And sighed. "If I leave then I've no way of knowing if he'll keep his word, and I gave my word to him and if I took that back then I'm no better than the villagers of my home."

"I thought the members of the Water Tribe keep their word."

"I'm not a member of the Water Tribe," Naruko admitted, curling her hands against her clothes. "The members of the Water Tribe don't have my hair colour or my skin colour. They all have dark skin and dark hair, none of them have light skin or blond hair."

"And you're not from the Earth Kingdom or the Fire Nations," the old man stated, looking at her with curiosity. "So where are you from, child?"

"My name is Naruko Uzumaki, not child," Naruko crossed her arms and stared at the old man, who took a seat beside her, "And where I come from, well you wouldn't believe me."

"My name is Iroh and Naruko, you won't know if you don't tell me."

"It sounds crazy," Naruko muttered and the old man smiled at her.

"I'm sure it doesn't sound crazy."

The way the old man, Iroh stared at her reminded her of the Sandaime Hokage, filled with care and curiosity. There was no judgment in his eyes just like the old Hokage and that hurt her because she didn't want to be reminded of the old man that died to protect the village. She didn't want to remember the funeral or the home that she dearly missed but, she did wanted a reminder and this old man gave her one.

"I come from another world, y'know?" Naruko said. "I come from a world where none of this exist. There was no such thing as a Fire Nation, Water Tribes, Air Nomads or the Earth Kingdom. There was no such thing as bending. If someone did that, then we say it might be their Kekkai Genkai."

"Kekkai Genkai?" Iroh asked, quirking his eyebrow at her.

"A bloodline, something that you inherit from your clan," Naruko elaborated. "And some countries had hidden villages and I was born in one of them. My home was called Hi no Kuni, which can be translated to the Land of Fire and my village was called Konohagakure, which can be translated to as the Village Hidden in the Leaves."

The old man didn't say anything instead he took another sip of his tea, staring at her as she took the time to reign in her thoughts. She didn't know why she told the old man this. It wasn't like her to tell strangers about her life or where she came from. For her to tell him this must have been a sign that she's missing home.

"If that's the case then how did you get here?"

"I was trying to bring back my ex-friend back home, trying to stop him from going to the man that murdered the Sandaime Hokage and well one thing led to another and before we knew it, I was fighting him," Naruko clasped her hands behind her head, avoiding the gaze from the old man. "And well I don't want to talk the rest about the story. I would rather forget about it but after the fight, I woke up in a freezing tent and found myself in the Southern Water Tribe."

"It must have been shock for you."

"You've no idea," Naruko admitted and she opened her mouth to say more but the words forming in her mouth were soon converted into a groan as memories flooded through her mind. She could see the fight between Aang and the leader of this ship and to her relief; Aang had Katara and Sokka with him. The last thing her clone had saw before disappearing had been Katara freezing the guards while begging for her to come with them. And the last thing her clone had said to Katara had been, "The boss is going to keep the promise and you know what boss is like with her promise."

Her clone hadn't seen the expression on Katara's face when she said this because it was at that moment; her clone had decided that it was time for her to disappear. Her clone had thought it would be painful to see her friends' reactions but not knowing how they felt was worse. She felt like a coward for not seeing how they feel and the last thing she was, was a coward.

"Are you alright, child?"

Naruko stiffened at the feeling of Iroh's hand on her shoulder before nodding her head. "Yeah, I just remembered something."

Iroh nodded his head but Naruko could see the sadness in his eyes, as if he knew what she knew but it was impossible. No one knew that she practically just told her friend that she had chosen her promise over them. A stupid promise to this ship's stupid leader. She had chosen that over going to her friends, instead of going to the people that took care of her.

How despicable could she get? If she ever got out of here or saw Sokka and Katara again, she was going to apologize for her actions and try to make it up to them. What she did to them was horrible and she deserved to see what their expression and commit to memory.

"You should go and see the leader of this ship," Naruko muttered, standing up the room. "I think he'll need all the help he can get to clean up my clone and Aang's mess, especially my clones' messes. They aren't known for being merciful to people that irritate me or force me do things I don't like to do."

"Those clones, they are apart of you aren't they?" Iroh asked as she stood up to walk out of the door. "My nephew mentioned that they look so much like you that it's uncanny."

"Of course they do, I created them from my chakra, it's only natural that they take my form. My clones knows what I know, have seen what I saw before I created them and have parts of my personality," Naruko sighed. "Sometimes through, I feel like they are not me because of how irresponsible they can be and the troubles they cause."

"Perhaps, they do that because you won't allow yourself to do such things," the old man suggested lightly, leading her out of the door.

"No, I just think that they do it because they just want to annoy the hell out of me and want me to get into trouble with someone. It's like they want to pick a fight with me or something."

Iroh laughed heartedly at her words and steered her through the stairs, making her climb up to the deck before climbing up after her. Naruko gritted her teeth and rubbed her arms, staring at the damage that Katara and Aang had made, before groaning at the sight of all of her clones tied up and the angry leader glaring at them.

Sighing, Naruko released the jutsu, wincing as all of their memories rushed through her mind while the guards and the leader stared at the ropes in shock and surprise. Naruko rubbed her forehead and gritted her teeth at her clones' recklessness, seeing the amount of damages they had made in a space of five minutes.

"Search for the clones!" The leader barked, glaring at the soldiers.

"You can't search for them," Naruko called out, crossing her arms and the soldiers and the leader, who her clones had learnt was called Zuko. "I dispel them so any punishment, you're going to give them will actually have to go to me since I'm the one who made them."

"You and your clones destroyed my ship!" Zuko seethed.

"They were doing it to make sure that Aang get out of here in safety," Naruko grimaced as she looked at the damage deck and the wounded soldier that had been unfortunate to get stab by the kunai. "Through I haven't told them to wound anyone, I just told them to do mayhem."

"And their definition of mayhem is destroying my ship!"

"It could be worst," Naruko smiled cheekily, staring at the soldiers who were heating up to the frozen soldiers. "They could have painted this whole ship in orange, make you and your men look like a girl and have announced to the people of the ship that you were really a female. Them destroying the ship are way better than that. Trust me, I would know."

"Fix this mess!"

"I would but I've no idea of how to fix a ship, I only know how to fix a couple of broken tables and shirts but that's it," Naruko rubbed her chin and looked at the soldiers, who were now digging up the snow. "However I can do something else."

"What?" The boy snapped.

"Calm down, Mr. Grumpy," Naruko muttered. "I'm trying to fix my clones' mistakes and you give me that expression, and I won't help you get out of here. In fact, I could just make this even harder for you and destroy the main engine or I could help you, pick the option you want."

"Fine, what can you do?" The boy asked, gritting his teeth.

"They can dig your ship out of the ice, I can make two hundred or more of them which is about ten times more then your crewmembers here," Naruko tapped her chin. "And if ya think about it, two hundred of them along with your crew will make it easier for you to get out of this freezing weather and into somewhere warm, where your crewmembers can recover."

"And what's in it for you?"

"I can't be some nice girl that just wanted to fix the mess she made?" Naruko asked, smiled innocently at him.

"If those things were of any indication, you aren't the type of girl who wants to fix the mess she makes."

"First off my clones aren't things, they are females that are unfortunately don't think about others when they do these types of things," Naruko snapped. "And secondly, I'm offering to help because I'm going to be stuck with you for the next god-know many months or weeks and I'll rather live in peace and comfort with everyone here then live in misery…and I really hate the cold, so that's why I'm helping you."

"If you want to live in peace with everyone here then you'll help me capture the Avatar," Zuko snapped. "That's the only way you can live in peace and comfort. If you don't help me then I'll make your stay very unpleasant."

"Helping you means betraying my friends and I won't betray Katara and Sokka," Naruko snarled. "I only come and stayed with you because of their safety, because you promise not to harm the villagers. No where did it mention that I help you capture the Avatar, who by the way, is just a twelve-year-old boy that can do no harm!"

"That twelve-year-old boy along with your clones destroyed my ship!" Zuko yelled.

"I can't speak for Aang but my clones did what they did to help protect my friends," Naruko stared icily at the boy's eyes. "I don't know about the Fire Nation but where I come from, those who break the rules are trash but those who abandon their friends and comrades are worse than that. If I hadn't done what I did then I would be no better than the people who abandon their friends for the safety of their hide. My clones did that as the only way to show them that I haven't abandoned them. To show them that no matter where the hell I'm, I'm always going to protect them."

The boy looked at her angrily and Naruko glared right back at him. This guy had to be one of the most infuriating guys that she had ever met and she had met plenty: Kiba, Sokka and Sasuke to name a few but this guy took the cake. He was so irritating that she wanted to make another clone and have that clone punch him for her or she just punch him.

"Prince Zuko, why not have Naruko here be your sparring partner?" Iroh asked, causing Naruko and Zuko to twist their heads to look at him in disbelief. "She does after all fight in a similar way to the Avatar and this could be a good preparation for you when you want to fight the Avatar."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Naruko said firmly. "This guy can barely last ten seconds, which makes sense since he's a prince and everything."

"And what does me having to be a prince have to do the way I fight?" Zuko snapped.

"It means you haven't got any real experience in fighting," Naruko smiled, "Because to be honest, while there have been a couple of times you could have injured me, there were more times where I could kill you easily. You left too many opening, you kept yourself unguarded and don't let me go about the form. If you were facing my friend Lee, you wouldn't have last a second against him."

"And you have experience, don't you?" Iroh asked, looking at her. "I could tell from your posture and the lack of noise from your shoes that you could fight. You could give my nephew the experience, the soldiers here aren't allowed to show him. What about that? You teach Prince Zuko how to deal with situation like what had happened and in return, you've a free bed."

"Uncle, don't make decisions! I'm the boss!"

"I'll do it," Naruko replied, putting her hands on her pockets. "I need a good sparing partner and I get a free bed besides, I've always wanted to whip the ass of some stuck-up Prince. I heard from Hinata-chan that her father once stated that the Princes and Daimyo don't really know what it is like out there. Now looking at Princie here, that seems true."

"First off, I'm not a stuck-up Prince!"

"Coulda fool me."

"Second off, I know what it's like out there!"

"300."

"What?"

"There were 300 times where I could have killed you," Naruko said wearily. "You give yourself too much openings and if it had been anyone else, they would have killed you. I'm not the best fighter in my village but if I could see that many openings then you can bet your ass that a skilled assassin would have seen more. I could use a kunai and stab you in the ribs in the village while you were fighting Aang. I could have definitely hurt you earlier when I went to your room because of how you haven't immediately attack me. If you want to survive out there in the world, then you need to stop showing too many openings."

"I was doing fine until now!"

"Your soldiers can't teach you how to fight dirty or push you into a situation where you've to," Naruko looked at him. "If you want to hunt someone down or go to war with someone then I suggest that you start getting into situations like those."

"And you can make me get into those situations."

"More then anyone else in this ship as Iroh-ojisan had heavily implied. Hell, I won't even go easy on you."

Zuko stared hard at her and with a reluctant nod, he said, "Fine you'll be the one to teach me but you're going to fix this ship until it's at least capable of setting sail! That's still something you still have to do!"

Naruko grinned and this would be one of the few times, the teens would come to agreement on something. Because it wouldn't be another hour before the two teens were arguing about whose fault it was and it wouldn't be long before everyone in the crew realized that the arguments between the two of them would be a daily occurrence.

* * *

I would like to thank you for reading.

Please pause before leaving this page and review.

It would be nice to know what you thought about this chapter.


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